[WikiEN-l] Re: a perhaps instructive tale

[Phil Boswell]

<herostratus at comcast.net> wrote in message 
news:020920060758.15423.43EAF629000358B400003C3F22070245539C9A9B0E9D9B9C019D0A08 at comcast.net...
>A small but perhaps instructive example of the law of unintended 
>consequences:
>
> Short version:
> 1) If I read it correctly, an administrator spotted a pedophilia userbox 
> in userspace
> and deleted it with an edit summary of "WTF? NO!"
> 2) This resulted in the destruction of a small but carefully constructed 
> attempt to
> remove POV (mostly pro-pedophile POV) from article space -- probably not 
> what that
> administrator desired.
[snippety-snip]
> It's NOT a big deal, but just a small example of how ill-considered 
> actions can lead
> somewhere else in the system to results opposite of what was intended. 
> Complex
> systems work like that, so please try to consider your actions carefully, 
> thanks.
> (details: 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Pedophilia>)

This was not in the least helped by the fact that one of the userboxes 
purported to be for the use of members of that WikiProject. It was created 
by one of those already under the spotlight under WP:POINT for creating (and 
re-creating? I can't recall) pedophilia userboxes and was therefore targeted 
for extreme destruction almost immediately.

Given the recent sh*tst*rm[1] this would seem to be a subject area which 
**needs** more careful scrutiny, and a WikiProject to oversee NPOV would 
appear to be a good idea.

Perusal of the MfD page linked above would seem to indicate that some people 
need to calm down and maybe reconsider their votes having taken a cold 
shower?

In the meantime, it might be a good idea if some people not already uncalm 
coud pay it a visit...

HTH HAND
-- 
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
[1] yes, I know "storm" isn't obscene, but it looks more symmetrical, m'kay? 
:-)