It's quite different than your Australia example actually.
I have acknowledged that it makes no particular difference to me
either way, but as I said I favour a policy of full disclosure.
The biggest difference is is that Australia is recognised by most
Australians even to have been founded by convicts and those who worked
to support the prison system, while Jimbo steadfastly denies what I
have said.
He has told me how shocked he is that I'd say something like that, how
wrong I am, how I shouldn't say things when I don't know what I'm
talking about, and has even said that I have accused him publicly of
being a pornographer.
Yet, while telling me how wrong I am and that I don't know what I'm
talking about, and how he's shocked that I would say such things, he
quietly sits not divulging exactly how it's wrong and what the right
version is, and until such time as he does so I see no reason to not
tell people the same old story over and over - without an explanation,
why should I believe that what he says is real? As I said before there
is an undeniable connection that Jimbo seems to want to deny: Bomis
sells porn (although it gets "less than 10%" of its revenue from it),
and Bomis was involved in the beginning of Wikipedia. That doesn't
mean Wikipedia is a pornographic encyclopedia, or an encyclopedia of
porn, or an encyclopedia founded by pornographers and supported mostly
by money from porn sales - all it means is just that: the company that
was the primary involved party in the beginning of Wikipedia, and in
which Jimmy Wales still plays a large part, does have a "premium"
website where it sells access to pornographic images. That doesn't
mean anything about the objectivity of Wikipedia, on the contrary
Wikipedia (at least en:) seems to be turning into Wikipedia - The
Prudish Encyclopedia.
Mark
On 25/04/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Anyhow back to my point. Wikipedia is somehow
related to Bomis
historically, right? This is a well-established fact, no? It says it
pretty much everywhere.
Jimbo himself admits that Bomis deals in porn (although it accounts
for less than 10% of their revenue).
Thus, I don't see where he gets the idea that the things people are
saying are wrong. And why did he just say "you're wrong" instead of
explaining, even after Ant asked him for an explanation? He has sent
me increasingly rude private e-mails as well rather than discuss it
calmly on the list.
One needs to make a distinction between the historical past and its
consequences.
I have no personal knowledge of the underlying facts, but for the sake
of argument I'm willing to accept that what you say is all true. It
then comes down to a matter of "So what?"
At the rate you're going we shouldn't be recognizing Australia as a
country because it was established by convicts.
Ec
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