[WikiEN-l] Parker Peters

[Ray Saintonge]

George Herbert wrote:

>On 2/23/07, John Lee wrote:
>  
>
>>The moderators have agreed to ban this user from subscribing to the list.
>>Since he was not making any positive contributions through his membership,
>>it has been revoked.
>>    
>>
>This is sort of sad; gadflys and contrary opinions help strengthen
>projects, and on his good days, he was on the "probably making me
>think enough that it's positive overall" side of things.
>
>But I see why, from the bad days.
>
>We need a better class of gadfly.
>
This seems like a fair evaluation of the situation.  An effective gadfly 
gets under a person's or a group's skin, and gives one the urge to 
swat.  This cost the life of the world's most celebrated gadfly.  A 
quality gadfly still needs to be an irritant, but also needs the agility 
to avoid the swatting hand.

Courage cannot become foolhardiness, and agility cannot become 
evasiveness.  That's a rare combination of qualities.  Parker's agility 
is lacking, but it is unduly harsh to say that he was making no positive 
contributions.  I am not so insecure in my views that I can tolerate no 
criticism.

Ec