[Foundation-l] Personal Apology RE: Wikibooks

[Robert Scott Horning]

Mr. Wales,

    Thank you for your apology.  Really.  I am perhaps taking this whole 
thing overboard way too much.

    I really do have the best interests at heart with what is going on 
for Wikibooks, and what I have enjoyed the most there is actually 
sitting down and writing textbooks.  While I've been involved with the 
politics of Wikibooks as well, my heart is with trying to write content. 
 I believe in that mission, and while I may differ with you on the 
philosophy that other content besides strictly textbooks should exist on 
that project, I do support the concept of an "open source" 
collaboratively written textbook, such as what is happening on 
Wikibooks, and elsewhere to a lesser degree such as Benjamin Crowell's 
Light and Matter on http://lightandmatter.com

    One of the motiviations that I have had for this project is that I 
am the father of six children, and I'm living in a state where the 
rising costs of textbooks is being particularly felt locally.  My 
children are often using textbooks that are 10-15 years old and have 
scribbles in them from almost a full generation of school children, 
because the local schools can't afford to replace these books.  There 
was one local school that was built brand new, but because the school 
district was really stretching it budget for the construction they 
couldn't afford to buy any books, either for the library or for the 
classrooms, including textbooks.  The ones they finally got were 
discarded from another school district that were updating their 
textbooks, together with a community book drive for the grade school 
library that finally got at least a few books in there.

    One of my goals to be involved with Wikibooks was to try and make 
textbooks for children where I am living to be much more affordable. 
 There is no reason why a science textbook for sixth grade should cost 
60 or 70 dollars, yet they do.  I'm not talking some obscure 3rd world 
country, but right here in America where we both live.

    I've also benefited in the past from cheap or free "textbooks" in a 
professional capacity as well.  By profession, I'm a software engineer, 
and I've had what would best be called an unorthodox educational 
experience to say the least to get to the point for where I'm at.  I 
picked up much of my knowledge by experimentation on a number of 
computer systems that were made available to children while I was 
growing up, including on-line technical manuals and early predecessors 
to IRC chatrooms.  I had an e-mail address 30 year ago and got my first 
piece of spam about the same time.  Using those early systems I was able 
to learn techniques and concepts that often my professors in college had 
no idea about until after I demonstrated the idea.  I got an "F" from 
one professor because he thought I was a smart-ass and because the 
professor couldn't get the computer to do the things I made it do.

    I feel I am getting old enough that I need to start passing on the 
knowledge that I've gained over the years to the next generation, and 
Wikibooks has provided me with a forum to be able to accomplish this 
goal.  In the process of learning more about Wikibooks and its 
organization, I've also come to know more about the Wikimedia Foundation 
and how Wikipedia was started.  

    I do want to thank you for starting Wikipedia, and having the vision 
to see that perhaps the Wiki concept could be applied to other areas of 
human knowledge as well.  I know other people were also involved, but 
you have been giving it the encouragement that it has needed as well. 
 The early financial backing is also something that I don't think 
anybody is going to forget, and thanks for that as well.

    I am going to take a break for now from what I've been doing on 
Wikibooks, and scale back my activities.  Still, with your apology and 
some retrospect on my part, I'm going to continue to be involved in some 
small part.  I've often said that even ordinary users on Wikimedia 
projects can do extraordinary things.  I'll try to prove that point by 
doing it.

    I'm also sorry that I had to be such a pain in your side.  And I 
apologize for the facist comment.  That was made in a moment of passion 
and I should have measured my comments that way in a much better tone. 
 Dredging up painful memories of an awful world experience 60 years ago 
and casting you as a participant of a truly evil group of people was 
really over the top, and I promise that I will never do that again.  

    As far as the White Nationalism and associated group of Wikibooks is 
concerned, I hope you understand that all I'm trying to suggest is that 
there could be an interesting Wikibook about the topic, and I completely 
agree with your assessment regarding a Neutral Point of View being 
essential when presenting things of that nature.  I was an outspoken 
critic of that Wikibook when it appeared, and to be honest I don't even 
understand the mentality of the people who actually believe that stuff. 
 The only point we differ on is how it should be dealt with when content 
like that appears, and this is really a very minor point to be arguing 
over.  We both agree it should have been removed as it was written, and 
I was not willing myself to make it into a NPOV book.  Life is too 
short, and I have other things I would rather do.

    I also want to thank you on one point with Wikibooks as well:  There 
was a need to "clean house" and get the Wikibooks community to pay 
attention to the out right silly books that have somehow been ingrained 
within the Wikibooks project.  This whole thing has caused the debate 
over what the direction of Wikibooks should be, and I geuninely hope 
that Wikibooks becomes a better place.  Looking at things like Alexa 
rankings and citations around the internet, Wikibooks is about to really 
come out from behind the shadow of its bigger cousin of Wikipedia and 
become something truly remarkable.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning