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

[Delirium]

Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Jun 2007, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
>   
>> What Ken is describing sounds more like a reiteration of Wikipedia's  
>> existing "no original research policy" than something specifically  
>> addressing stalking or cyberstalking. I think stalking happens  
>> frequently enough that it deserves to be treated seriously in its own  
>> right rather than subsumed under some other concept. In the case of  
>> Allison Stokke, the young woman whose experience was the spark of  
>> this thread, Wikipedia's article about her didn't *create* any news.  
>> Her situation has been reported in the Washington Post and elsewhere.  
>> Ken's policy therefore would not be particularly helpful in this case.
>>     
>
> Again, I said the rule needed to be reworded.  Wikipedia didn't create news
> in the sense of causing her to be stalked.  But (for the sake of argument)
> Wikipedia's attempt to report on stalking her achieves the goals of the
> stalkers.  Likewishe, Wikipedia's attempt to report on GNAA helps achieve
> the goals of GNAA.  If writing a Wikipedia article implies participating in
> the story to this degree, then we shouldn't have an article.
>   

Again, this would imply we should have almost no articles on current 
subjects. An article on an upcoming peace protest increases its 
visibility and helps achieve its goals of turning out many members; an 
article on controversies involving "shock jock" radio personalities 
helps increase their notoriety, which is their main goal; an article on 
a new Apple product helps spread product information to potential 
customers, thereby helping it sell more units; an article on a terrorist 
attack helps scare more people, thereby helping the terrorists achieve 
their aims; etc.

Of course in none of these cases should we allow the articles to be 
non-neutral or *explicitly* promote anything, but it's simply impossible 
to create an encyclopedia that has no secondary effects, since spreading 
information nearly always has secondary effects, and spreading 
information is actually the entire point.

-Mark