[WikiEN-l] A "Wikipedia-Free Zone"

[Rob]

On 2/9/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> Comic book artist and web forum owner John Byrne has declared his
> forum to be a "Wikipedia-Free Zone" and banned all links to Wikipedia
> regardless of content or context:
>
> http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16456&PN=1&totP
> osts=105
>
> It seems his grievance against Wikipedia is that he was unable to
> bully it into suppressing all mention of controversies and criticisms
> of him in his article, and rebuffed his Daniel-Brandt-ish demand that
> the John Byrne article be either deleted or permanently locked.

When Byrne complained to Jimbo a year or two ago, Jimbo, in a
proto-wp:office action, blanked the article and requested it be
rewritten with scrupulous attention to sources.  So it was rewritten,
the bulk of it by me initially, and it was stripped of anything
resembling rumor and innuendo and sourced almost entirely with
published interviews of Byrne himself.  And he's still angry.  Both
before and after Byrne has refused to answer, despite repeated
requests from myself, Jimbo, and members of his own forum, exactly
what problems he had with the article.  My best guess is that he
thought there shouldn't be an article at all or that it was a stubborn
point of honor for him to not identify the problems, as we should have
caught them ourselves.   At least Brandt came up with specific, though
ludicrous and impossible, demands from time to time.  You do the best
you can, but some people won't be happy unless they are provided with
veto power over whatever anyone says about them.  Case in point is
Byrne's message board, a place where thoughtcrime is rigorously
controlled, manned by sycophants and widely mocked in the comic book
community.