[WikiEN-l] "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 22 Feb 2006 at 06:40, "Daniel P. B. Smith" <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:

> 1) It's still free, isn't it?

That word has a number of different senses, some of which apply to 
Wikipedia and some that don't.  It can be accessed at no charge, but 
people using it are not free to do things that its admins and Jimbo 
don't allow them to do.

> 2) Wikipedia is still an encyclopedia, isn't it? Surely you can have  
> an encyclopedia without an article on Brian Peppers in it. Many other  
> encyclopedias get by without such an article.

Yes, I wouldn't expect the Encyclopedia of 18th Century French 
Revolutionaries to include such an article, nor the Encyclopedia of 
Star Wars Planets.  An Encyclopedia of Internet Memes, on the other 
hand, might well have such an entry.  So the question then becomes 
just what sort of encyclopedia is Wikipedia.

> 3) Anyone can still edit Wikipedia, can't they?

Other than the people who are banned, anyway.

> 4) If this deletion was made "unilaterally" then who are the twenty  
> or so other sysops who also deleted the page? Are they all Jimbo's  
> sockpuppets?

They're one side of an edit war, obviously, with those who undeleted 
or recreated it on the other side.

Jimbo ended up taking sides in this war, something he's been doing 
more often lately, and perhaps necessarily, given the apparent 
increasing inability of the community to reach stable consensuses 
(consensi?) by itself.

-- 
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/