On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 8:10 PM, wiki doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
Wikipedia becomes more like religion every day.
With a God-King in a cloud realm and the occasional crucifixion. Not to mention passing the plate on a regular basis.
I think it is important that we don't develop the same sort of hierarchy and mentality of the established faiths. After all, they have a successful business model, with holy writ handed down from on high. Wikipedia began by reversing the flow, and I think that for the internet age, we've got a grand tradition, where anyone can jump in and add their two bits.
Jesus said "Blessed are the meek," and here we are, where the masses have handcrafted a grand cathedral of knowledge.
In the Beginning God said, "Hello World!". One person likes this.
I will officially admit to feeling that there is a severe absence of good faith. A few years ago we used to entertain the odd crazy who would spout some nonsense, and we'd humor him.
Maybe it's a cultural failure. Maybe there are people who have not read, or who have read but not understood, the article "Hello world".
I remember that in 1992 I was stung by a wasp near the end of a day in York. I would happily take you to the precise location outside York station, I said "fuck". There is absolutely no documentation for this. It happened. My own first experiments with a wiki, in 2002 or thereabouts, are not recorded either, but they led to my involvement here. There has to be a point at which we admit that assuming good faith might work, and in trivial matters like this surely it wouldn't be a bad idea.
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
I remember that in 1992 I was stung by a wasp near the end of a day in York. I would happily take you to the precise location outside York station, I said "fuck". There is absolutely no documentation for this. It happened. My own first experiments with a wiki, in 2002 or thereabouts, are not recorded either, but they led to my involvement here. There has to be a point at which we admit that assuming good faith might work, and in trivial matters like this surely it wouldn't be a bad idea.
If it's trivial, then it's adequate to say nothing about it.
Wales doesn't exactly have a track record of telling the whole truth about himself (See http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/2007/07/on_wikipedia_and_its_founde...).
Does every thread referring to Jimmy Wales really have to become a venue for some deranged vendetta? How does this help us to write an encyclopedia?
I don't think it helps to characterise any simple questioning of the leader as a "deranged vendetta". Are you suggesting all criticism is a mark of either hatred or insanity - or both? That line of defending leaders against criticism has a somewhat unsavoury history.
What happened here is that someone noted that the archives that have emerged didn't record Jimmy's "hello world" as the fist edit. That type of attention to detail is hardly surprising when Wikipedians are so keen to document their own history, and culturally sensitive to looking for verification of any claims.
Now, it is quite possible that the archives omit "hello world" because they are incomplete. It is also possible (as I suggested) that the story may be more pictorial than literal: Jimmy began the thing: once Wikipedia was not, then Jimmy said hello to the world. To that degree it is a useful myth whose literal accuracy (or our ability to verify such) may be thought irrelevant.
It is, of course, quite proper to say "it doesn't matter". However, in that case it neither matters to denounce Jimmy (even if he were misremembering) nor to defend him (even if he were literally correct about his edits).
Those who don't care, don't want to know. Anyone who does care, probably will never know anyway.
Scott
Oh, I use 'myth' in the technical sense - not in the untruth sense - but therein lies another whole debate.
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway Sent: 16 January 2011 23:27 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Hello world! (was "Hello world?")
Does every thread referring to Jimmy Wales really have to become a venue for some deranged vendetta? How does this help us to write an encyclopedia?
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