The Cunctator wrote:
On 2/28/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
We were just discussing that ... Wikipedia *doesn't* want to be "the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit". There's too much abuse, too much ranting from trolls with a sense of self-entitlement, encouraged by that tagline.
I quite like the idea of "Welcome to Wikipedia, where good authors are always welcome".
Funny, I never realized you were the One True Prophet through whom Wikipedia speaks.
(Because you're not.)
That was uncalled for, you know. We're all entitled to express our view of what Wikipedia is or should become, and all entitled to attempt to interpret the will of "the community".
You're right. I'm sorry.
But I think that Mark Gallagher's approach is dangerously wrong. Restricting Wikipedia to "good" people smacks of Animal-Farm-esque groupthink.
That attitude gives "our enemies" way too much attention and credit.
It creates way too much of an us-vs.-them paradigm which I've fought against from day one.
And Wikipedia doesn't like that.
[[WP:NOT]] a social experiment. We're not here to see if trolls or "bad" people can be rehabilitated. We're here to write an encyclopedia, and anyone more interested in doing "bad" things can go busy themselves on any of the millions of other websites on the internet. While I dislike us vs them dichotomies as much as the next fellow, I can certainly bear those acting in good faith vs those acting in bad faith.
John