[Foundation-l] Liu Xiaobo

[Phil Nash]

Nathan wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Phil Nash <phnash at blueyonder.co.uk>
> wrote:
>> Peter Damian wrote:
>>> I don't know why such fuss has been made in the media about this.
>>> Under Chinese law, Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by
>>> Chinese judicial
>>> departments for violating Chinese law
>>> http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/461876 His own community has
>>> delivered a verdict upon him: he is a criminal. He deserves 'fair
>>> treatment' no more than the trolls who have disrupted the Wikipedia
>>> deserve so-called 'fair treatment'. Those who violate community
>>> norms, such as Xiaobo (in the case of China) or many of the
>>> disruptive elements who create havoc on the project
>>> by their offensive comments and offsite attacks. The Chinese
>>> government
>>>> imposed a blackout on news of the award: quite right. This is
>>>> exactly what
>>> would happen on Wikipedia, by means of blocks in article space, talk
>>> pages and email access. More power to the community!
>>>
>>> Peter
>>
>> This is so naive a post that I can only believe that someone has
>> hijacked your account, and I can't wait for your amendments to
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolpuddle_Martyrs
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi
>>
>> I expect you might have an apology and weakly-argued defence
>> tomorrow, when you might have sobered up, but right now you are on
>> thin ice in epistemological terms and are closer to a 17-year old
>> newly-"radicalised" student than a considered scholar.
>>
>> Shame on you, and that's without discussing the legal system of
>> China.
>>
>>
>>
>
> You understood, I'm sure, that he was making an exaggerated comparison
> between the Chinese government's approach to public debate and
> Wikipedia's governance? He clearly believes that Liu Xiaobo has been
> mistreated (which he has been), and also that he and others have been
> mistreated by Wikipedia in a conceptually similar fashion. If you
> think he actually believes Liu Xiaobo is a criminal deviant, I think
> you missed the point.
>
> Nathan

He claims to be a philosopher, not a satirist. Meanwhile, any  comparison 
between the Chinese judicial system and Wikipedia can only be [[WP:GODWIN'S 
LAW|insulting]]. I regard the post as utterly misguided, and not the first I 
have seen in recent days.