On 4/19/06, BorgHunter borghunter.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I understand the concerns about the Office action, and how it may have posed a legal threat to Wikimedia. The issue at stake here, however, is not "Was the Office action justified?" Rather, I think the problem was, at a fundamental level, communication. Along the way, it was failed to be communicated that the action in question was indeed an Office action.
I don't agree. If Erik was unaware of what was going on, he wouldn't have unprotected the page. Erik has only once before unprotected a page with that account. Even his edit summary makes it clear that he was trying to make a point about the public disclosure office protection, a matter he has previously been outspoken for...
It may be worth discussing if his point had merit, but I think that it is clear to everyone who cares about behaving in a responsible way that it is not acceptable to make a point out of something that is quite possibly a legal issue.
When did Wikipedia admins forget about talk pages and email? The complaints about these issues are always justified by fears of protecting "the community", but what sort of community do we actually have when trusting and discussion are no longer considered valuable? How are we a community when every person fancies himself to be [[Rambo]]?