[WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Daniel P. B. Smith [mailto:wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 06:04 PM
>To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?
>
>Someone on this mailing recently started a thread:
>
>> Subject: [WikiEN-l] psychosis and wikipedia.
>>
>> I'd love to see some psychology-oriented individual do a case study  
>> on what
>> kind of people are attracted to editing on Wikipedia.  What  
>> psychological
>> defects lurk behind the computer screens and the keyboards.
>
>Could we please, please, _please_ try to tone down some of the use of  
>wildly exaggerated language and hype in this mailing list?
>
>Psychosis means "A severe mental disorder, with or without organic  
>damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of  
>contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social  
>functioning."
>
>As in schizophrenia.
>
>It does _not_ mean a difficult person, a jerk, a bastard, an arrogant  
>adolescent, etc. Nor does it mean a person obsessed with an ideology  
>and a pitbull determination to inflict it on everyone.
>
>I'm no psychologist, but in my fifteen years as a USENET participant,  
>I have perhaps _twice_ seen postings that I thought might, in fact,  
>actually have been made by someone suffering from schizophrenia. I  
>have yet to see anything similar on Wikipedia.
>
>Words _do_ have meanings.

We don't diagnose people, we go by their behavior. Some of the behavior we see is symptomatic of mental illness. This mailing list is for the purpose of discussing the problems we see, one of which is a variety of disruptive and grossly unproductive behavior. Out solution is to address behavior problems, not to diagnose and treat. As to schizophrenia, most schizophrenics have trouble getting online or participating when they get there. That's why they are not seen.

Fred