On 2/3/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
Calling yourselves the "Counter Terrorism Unit" doesn't do a good job of that.
I really rather doubt that the vast majority of vandals have that level of awareness of the internal operation of wikipedia
Anyone who does have that level of awareness about Wikipedia's internal operations and yet continues to vandalize us is not someone we're going to make friends with anyway until they realize that they're in the wrong and that we have every right to oppose vandalism.
Calling oneself the "Counter Vandalism Unit" harms Wikipedia not, primarily, by changing the expectations of outsiders, but by changing the worldview of insiders.
I'm sorry, I just don't like paramilitary metaphors for elements of the Wikipedia community and I never will.