[WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

[George Herbert]

On 3/5/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > William Pietri wrote:
> >
> > > > This especially concerns me as you used your administrative powers to
> > > > enforce your minority view in a disagreement in which you were very
> > > > actively involved. Wouldn't it have been better to let somebody who had
> > > > less involvement decide the outcome?
> >
> William, I understand that feelings are running high and people feel
> they need an outlet. Still, we have a very serious situation here
> where the subject has left Wikipedia and yet is continuing to be
> attacked. Bear in mind that he's being discussed by what we believe to
> be his real name, so BLP kicks in here, and we have to be careful what
> we say, and respectful of his right to get on with his life. It's
> important to discuss the political fall-out so we can work out what
> the lessons are, but comments about the person aren't necessary. As
> David said, it was an uncertified RfC, and he was within his rights to
> delete it.

I would like to spin this back.  I don't particularly like the carping
on Essjay, and I'm not going to participate in it, but there is
clearly a lot of community upset over both the affair, and whether we
like it or not, it's going to come out.

Having a specific RFC page lets that happen in a single centralized
space, which is probably better for the project - people can "me too"
instead of venting the same thing over and over again in different
places, and also if there's a fair degree of support for Essjay then
those who are upset can see that, which is important.  If they feel
that they're being persecuted by an internal elite who delete RFC
pages and the like they may get an inaccurate feeling that Essjay's
supporters are only a small narrow insiders group.

I wouldn't recreate anything myself (as I said, I will not get into
this, it's odious to me), but I think that until it dies off on its
own, it needs its space somewhere.  Let it burn itself out rather than
fester.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com