On 5/30/07, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It keeps coming back to two facts:
(1) External sites are going to criticize Wikipedia, and
(2) Those sites aren't going to bind themselves to WIkipedia's rules.
It seems to me that almost anyone criticizing Wikipedia from outside
is going to come upon cases where they will feel compelled to "out"
some editor. The principle that real-life identity does not matter
isn't generally accepted (in my opinion, because it isn't true), and
situations will arise where critics will feel the need to demonstrate
that it isn't true by unmasking an editor (see "Essjay controversy").
Those critics are also likely to have different notions of how to
"decorously" discuss matters.
Nonsense. The posters are disgruntled ex-Wikipedians, who couldn't
abide by Wikipedia's rules, and now are looking to get back at those
they feel wronged them. It has nothing to do with principles, or even
compulsion, and everything to do with petty meanness. The hypocrisy of
the vast majority of the posters, who insist that Wikipedia editors
should not remain anonymous *while posting from pseudonymous accounts
themselves*, is breathtaking.
As a general principle Wikipedians are going to want to refer to such
criticisms in discussion about how to improve Wikipedia.
Uh, no, because there aren't any serious criticisms to be found.
Whining, backbiting, attempts to out editors, spinning of increasingly
absurd conspiracy theories, vulgarity, obscenities, vulgarities, and
froth-mouthed cries of "abuse of admin tools" and "the cabal"
aren't
criticism.
The erased
link that brought me into this was made in exactly such a context. In
this wise we seem to have a meta-policy here that Wikipedia can only
be criticized on its own terms, which strikes me as a lame principle.
As far as WR is concerned, a lot of what is said is rude, immature,
and frankly incoherent. Nonetheless I have found it worthwhile to
engage them. Anyone who has read TNH's commentary for long knows that
it gets pretty pungent.
TNH isn't an attack site. On the other hand, *your* favorite message board is.
I see that there is now a better attempt being made to
define what an
attack site is. I'm not sure that this is going to work, because the
threshold for what is an attack is being set quite low. But somehow
it's going to be necessary to distinguish between criticism of
Wikipedia and "attacks".
WR is a site that contains "criticism of Wikipedia" in the same way
that Jew Watch is a site that contains "Scholarly Collection of
Articles on Jewish History" and "Focuses on Professionalism". In the
real world these things aren't so gray, though I understand your
interest in obfuscating them.