[WikiEN-l] Self-sensorship, how far should it go?

[Phil Boswell]

jayjg wrote:
> 
> On 8/1/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>> If I knew nothing about SV and her Wikipedia history, I would at least
>> expect my n00b question of "SV, what's this on /. about you supposedly
>> being
>> some sort of spy?" or my n00b statement of fact like "SV, there's this
>> silly
>> thing on /. about you being a secret agent" to be responded to civilly,
>> with
>> at least a brief explanation, rather than having them being removed from
>> the
>> talk page without a trace,
> 
> If Wikipedia Review started alleging you were a pedophile, do you
> imagine you respond civilly to questions of "John, what's all this
> about you being a pedophile"?
> 
I probably wouldn't be civil at all: well, about WR, I'd try to be nice to
the questioner.

I would compare them (WR again) unfavourably to the mighty John Grubor who
was the first (and AFAIK only, so far) person to allege on-line that *I* was
a pedophile (me, and hundreds of others, it was a favourite tactic ;-), and
I would likely be provided with an opportunity to mock them for their lack
of knowledge of Internet history when they said "John who?" (if the article
on Grubor hadn't been deleted by some nitwit who thinks that history
finished with the invention of the Internet, I would be able to point them
at a Wikipedia article, but as it is I would have to Google for him).

I would chide them for their lack of anything approaching intellect or
imagination, and compare them (again) to small children at the zoo poking
the animals through the cage (myself, I'd like to be a polar bear, but a
civet would also be perfectly acceptable, in terms of self-defence
capabilities).

I would not, however, go screaming around the wiki waving my virtual hands
in the air and demanding that any reference to any such allegations be
deletionated with extreme prejudice. I would not expect any of my friends or
colleagues to do so either, and any such juvenile behaviour indulged in on
my behalf would be soundly mocked in turn. I would not attempt to create a
policy which said that any web-site which mentioned such allegations should
be delinked from any and all pages on the wiki: assuming that any such site
exists, it would likely be an integral part of our sources on the early
history of the Internet (oh, no, wait…see above for the end of history and
consequent deletionation).

For your information, in my position as an Adoptive Father, allegations of
pedophilia would be much more worrying to me than anything to do with being
some sort of Secret Agent, but happily I am comfortable that neither is true
(although some of that stuff Q makes would be kewl).

Whether or not SV is or is not an agent for MI-5, Mossad, the Bavarian
Illuminati, or the Gestapo themselves is now lost in the crackle of flames
as Good Faith in Wikipedia is destroyed: if "the Kabal" are willing to go to
town over something as stupid and trivial as this, what would they be like
if a *serious* allegation came along?

HTH HAND
-- 
Phil
-- 
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Oh-shit%2C-Slashdot-is-an-attack-site%21-tf4160239.html#a11983055
Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.