On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:

James Rigg writes:

...

I'm not questioning here whether or not there are good reasons for sometimes being non-transparent and hierarchical, I'm just saying that it's interesting that, contrary to its founding ideals, and probably also to how many people think, or like to think, Wikipedia is run, it is not run in a fully transparent and non-hierarchical way.

Similarly, lots of people use the term "freedom of speech" but are unwilling to allow other people the freedom to perjure themselves in court proceedings, commit libel, or conspire to commit a crime. These means those hypocrites are misusing the term "freedom of speech" of course. Very dishonest or them, or at least disingenuous.

--Mike

As a member of the Wikimedia staff, using sarcasm - in both the post title and contents - against another contributor to the list isn't very professional.

People understand that freedom of speech does not mean that someone has the right to falsely shout 'fire' in a crowded cinema, but people also understand that calling an organisation transparent, when it is in fact semi-transparent, is misleading.

James