On 6/4/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
I've just performed some radical surgery on an article called Bus Uncle. This unspeakable piece of shit somehow managed to make it to "Featured Article" status without anyone actually reading it. All references to names of private individuals have now been removed. I've also removed it from the Featured Article list.
Raul seems to pretty squarely disagree with, as do others. If people do something--even something negative, which garners them notoriety--and then TALK about it, to the media, guess what? They've identified themselves to the world quite well, and no BLP concerns exist for the privacy of their names. The man went nuts; he was recorded going nuts; it got press; he garnered more press by going to the media about it to milk it for what it was worth. What privacy violations exist in regard to his name, and who made you the arbiter of anything? Your voice has no more weight than any other. That goes for all the recent self-appointed BLP Cops that are doing the equivalent of using Rodney King level arrest methods in enforcing what their personal opinion of BLP is.
I still assert quite well that the "old timers" going nuts of late, trying to forcefully close down discussion on various matters, is a *direct* reaction to the fact that Wikipedia has now grown beyond their perceived personal control, and the fact that any one individual or small clique each day, each week, and each passing month will grow ever more irrelevant and obscure. Where a lone senior editor or admin or three previously had tremendous power, that is no longer the case, and many people are willing to challenge them--and successfully. I saw that even a beaurocrat on the Armedblowfish RFA was reverted, and told to knock it off by a group of editors for overstepping the bounds of his role.
This is, overall, a good thing in the long term--the more the community collectively drives matters, the more irrational and extremist voices on any and all sides will be drowned out, swept away, and largely ignored as they gnash their teeth and wail at the walls. Within 1-3 years, the current 'leaders' of the community--no offense, guys, you brought us here, after all--will need to adjust to the fact that they're just "another user". I think the hyper-aggressive tone is evidence of this--the, "Discussion is over" sorts of proclamations and whatnot.
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com