[WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

[Ben Lowe]

On 4/19/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> I think that lately Danny has not been using the OFFICE tag because people
> tend to raise a fuss over things protected under this specific policy, and
>
> more publicity to/furor over an issue that's already very sensitive is a
> thorny thing to deal with.  My guess, anyway.


Is this really a surprise?  I remember always hearing the best way to make a
book popular is to get it banned; why should this be any different on
Wikipedia?  For people looking for controversy and scandal on the
encyclopedia that anyone can edit, the two or three articles that *no one --
NO ONE -- can edit for fear of eternal exile *are way more interesting than
the more-than-a-million other articles.  I suspect more Wikipedians (and
slashdotters) know about [[Brian Peppers]] than [[Jordanhill railway
station]].  Is OFFICE necessary?  Sure, probably.  Wikipedia definitely
needs to be responsible, both in terms of its own liability. But if Danny
wants to use WP:OFFICE without controversy, he needs it to be normalized,
not hidden.  People need to simply get used to it.  The only way that
WP:OFFICE is going to become non-controversial is if it's openly used.

Now of course, I'm reading into this a bit.  Perhaps there's some other
reason, besides trying to avoid outcry, that Danny didn't mention it was an
OFFICE action and removed the OFFICE tag from the page.  Regardless, if
we're to change the policy to say "Danny edits Wikipedia with
Sharpies<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpie_%2528marker%2529>"
(which I don't think is a good idea), if [[WP:OFFICE]] should redirect to
[[WP:DANNY]], it needs to actually say that somewhere.  (And, of course, so
everyone is clear about the difference, Danny shouldn't edit the
encyclopedia anymore, except as Office Danny.)

Ben

P.S. -- If Jimbo is referred to as "God-King" I can only imagine the
nicknames this will create for Danny.