[WikiEN-l] A further descent into self-referential idiocy

[The Cunctator]

I believe you are upset that people disagree with you. That is fine.

But believing that those people are malicious, vile, or lack judgment is a
mistake.

For example, I think that Jeffrey O. Gustafson's actions on BJAODN are
destructive to the longterm health of Wikipedia.

But I don't think he was failing to apply any judgment. I just think his
judgment is faulty.

Nor do I expect everyone to agree with me.

Though I would think that blatant wheel-warring wouldn't be countenanced.

On 6/4/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have never been so ashamed to be associated with Wikipedia as I am just
> now.
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Allison_Stokke_%28second_nomination%29
>
> There are a large number of people saying we should have this article.
> As of the time of writing, they seem to *all* be basing this on
> various forms of an assertion that because the subject fulfils an
> arbitrary criteria that we ourselves made up, having an article is
> therefore either necessary, our right, or inevitable. (It is not clear
> which of these schools they subscribe to, but it seems implicitly to
> be one of the three)
>
> There is *one* passing comment, made in response to my complaint,
> about a neutral article being a defensibly a "good thing", because
> then we get on top of the google results and it's better than the
> alternatives - I disagree with it, but it's a reasoned position.
> Otherwise... not a smidgen of editorial thought. Just an incantation
> of an article of faith, a slavish devotion to a meaningless line in
> the sand.
>
> And then, the crowning glory: "Strong keep ... No BLP issues and
> Wikipedia contains content you might find objectionable ... Wikipedia
> is not censored ... ethical point of views and non-neutral !votes are
> irrelevant." - from, god help me, an admin. One of the people we
> theoretically select for common sense and an understanding of our
> goals. Linking - I am not making this up - to the content disclaimer.
>
> Are we really saying that *because we made up an arbitrary rule
> ourselves*, we get to ignore any form of editorial sense and then
> loudly disclaim responsibility for the result? Do people honestly
> believe that this makes us an encyclopedia? A grand game of nomic over
> what does and doesn't constitute a topic, an endless series of rules
> on who we can and cannot write about, without any attempt to apply
> *judgement* to them? Without any attempt to say - hey, sometimes we
> have to make decisions on things?
>
> The world is not full of hard and fast situations. We can't draw nice
> defining lines everywhere and get shining happy results. Sometimes,
> God forbid, we have to think about boundary cases. I wish people would
> show some willingness to.
>
> What happened to the project I signed up to back in 2004? This twisted
> imitation of an attempt to write an encyclopedia sure as hell doesn't
> seem to be it.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
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