On Nov 30, 2007 6:32 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, George Herbert wrote:
I think we do need to have and protect people willing to whistleblow on actual malfeasance should it happen. But that's not even remotely what happened here. The only goal served by Giano's actions was drama and disruption.
Giano posting the message served the goal of exposing a systematic problem.
Certainly exposing problems that people would rather not have exposed can cause drama and disruption, but as I've pointed out, that's the fault of the person whose bad behavior is being exposed, not the fault of the person doing the exposing.
A. The systematic problem in question is, as far as I can tell, hypothetical.
I can posit that Giano wouldn't have known that at the time, but we know better now.
The information available at the time was arguably ambiguous, but did not factually clearly point to malfeasance.
Whistleblowing when you factually know enough to conclude with certainty that there is malfeasance is one thing. Whistleblowing when you have a bit of information and a supposition is quite another. Giano might have thought there was clearly something wrong; he was incorrect in doing so if that's what he thought. He should not have concluded with enough certainty to justify "blowing it wide open" by posting it on WP.
If you make a false conclusion based on partial information, and act incorrectly based on that false conclusion, you are responsible for your misdeeds.
B. If one breaks the law or local rules in whistleblowing, few jurisdictions include a "get out of jail free" card along with it. Even if I hypothetically were to agree that this was legitimate whistleblowing and not excess drama, Giano still repeatedly did something against Wikipedia rules, after being told by office people not to.
I think Giano was trying to do what he thought was the right thing. But his zeal and outrage outpaced the actual facts, and led him to commit unjustified excesses.
Blowing off repeated office warnings has to have consequences.
I am sympathetic to those who want to shine the light of day around a bit and make sure there aren't any skeletons hidden in the formerly private closets. That doesn't excuse abuses of WP policy in the process of taking the look around.
I hope and expect that a polite, good-faith assuming inquiry that didn't push buttons or violate policies would have gotten as open and honest a disclosure from participants about what happened here. That's not what happened. I don't want to hold Giano responsible for the dramatic but not glaringly policy-breaking excesses of others, but I do think he has to take his lumps for what he himself did.
I hope he comes back afterwards. He is, though trying at times, a good participant in the project. But good people goof. And some good people don't always play well with others.