Michael,
You're certainly welcome to your opinion. You should
take notice, however, that even though you stood up
for some of 24's ideas, participated in his various
meta pages, argued that he was not a troll (which
prompted Larry to label *you* a troll), offered to
work with him in order to shake up the Wikipedia
status quo, and erased an entire article in order to
start from scratch, no one even *suggested* that you
should be banned. Nor is anyone suggesting it now as
you reiterate your position.
I don't want to fan the flames again. I do want to say
that you're welcome to participate in this project and
hold any view you like. Just aim for the NPOV when
writing articles. And hey, if you're worried about the
Amazon articles, click the link and jump in with both
hands on your keyboard. ;-)
Stephen G.
--- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise(a)surfbest.net>
wrote:
koyaanisqatsi(a)nupedia.com wrote:
Well, he also said Larry Sanger was not a human
and something else--I forgot what
exactly--that
sound very much like a threat. That was the final
straw, as it were: Jimbo banned him, and he's been
banned ever since (and for good reason!)
Perhaps you should quote the entire argument or some
context.
24 alleged the first thing Larry Sanger said to him
was an attack.
The "threat" in context appeared to be rhetorical
hyperbole
to me. Further, it was stated in the form that
people like
Larry (clearly referring to his attitudes and
prejudices that
were being applied to "24", deserved to have bad
things happen
to them) It appeared to be an angry response to
pretty intense
steady harrassment in the stacks because some
regulars did
not like "24"'s material, beliefs, attitude, etc.
There appeared
to be some rather abrubt deletion taking place.
Several times
material that I was attempting to NPOV ended with
abrubt
deletion/erasure of the entire article or content in
the middle
of my editing.
This got extremely irritating to me, I am sure it
probably
bothered "24". When I erased the biased [software
engineering]
article in its entirety it seemed to provoke an
astonishingly
intense reaction from "64" (maveric149) and Lee
Crocker. Perhaps
they were involved in writing it.
Later, when I reviewed this mailing list archive,
several
"regulars" had started wondering out loud whether
they should
fear for their personal safety. Quite a leap in my
opinion.
It clearly escalated the controversy.
Perhaps the reason for banning appeared to good to
you.
To me it looks like "24" was banned because he had
interests
similar to my own in participating in establishing
or modifying
the community standards and processes. "24"
appeared interested
in methods that would support large diverse
participation
levels. "24" was apparently interested in green
issues and
other political activism.
"24" was interested in establishing community
processes that
would be compatible or attractive to people who
could help
fill in gaps in those areas.
You say he was banned appropriately in effect,
because he would be
not nice when Mr. Wales contacted him privately
because the "community"
complained of his behavior and opinions and good
riddance.
I say he was banned inappropriately because
when he brought up issues of community governance
and content
completeness and attempted to add his own
perceptions to the
gesalt he would not quietly roll over when
arbitrarily
trumped by "long standing respected community
members".
This appeal to authority persisted along with
refusal to
engage in any meaningful dialogue regarding how to
establish
a participatory process. I do not allege that Mr
Wales
actions were inappropriate but that the "community"
created
the situation in which the controversy between "24"
and others
were not resolved amicably. Rather "24"s material
and opinions
were routinely arbitrarily deleted and dismissed out
of hand
by long term participants and their cronies. When
"24"s
provoked behavior got offensive enough, Mr. Wales
was called
in for totalitarian action and apparently "24"
resisted his
attempts to exercise a calming influence.
The reasons were poor and, in my opinion, do not
bode well for
the unstated goal of Wikipedia to be a high quality
NPOV
encyclopedia. The stated goal of 100K articles is
quite
achievable by a small closed "community", 35K and
counting.
I wonder if, after passing the 100K mark, I will be
able to
find anything authoritative, comprehensive, fun,
informative,
wonderous, astonishing, etc. regarding the Amazon
basin provided
by native English speakers or translated from the
Spanish
Wikipedia or if I will have to proceed to the
English translation
of the Spanish Fork?
regards,
mirwin
[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go
here:
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