Hi, Fred.
fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info wrote:
Incidents which happened years ago are repeatedly
brought up as though they were new revelations, despite having been previously been
investigated and resolved. Any scrap of stale information which might attract attention is
advanced.
I agree that's a real problem, but I disagree that banning discussion is
the solution.
For everybody else's problems in the world, Wikipedia believes that the
best solution is more information, not less. We believe that clear,
neutrally stated factual information is the antidote to pretty much any
sort of idiocy. Or at least that censorship won't help.
Are you a conservative Christian who doesn't want your kids to find out
about sex? Tough, we say. A holocaust survivor who believes that the
holocaust deniers should never be mentioned again? Too bad. A suicide
hotline worker who thinks that giving people more information on the
topic is resulting in actual deaths? We might care, but we won't stop
publishing.
Our one proved skill is to dig into things and come to relatively
neutral, factual understandings. As an admin, if I have been accused of
malfeasance, what I want is for people to dig into it fairly, publicly,
and in detail. Then, when somebody brings up the tired old accusation, I
can point them to the independent investigation. Case closed.
The last thing I would want is for all discussion to be banned. At best,
that leaves people with lingering suspicions. At worst, the belief that
if it's being covered up, there must be something there. And by not
providing closure, it guarantees that things will come up again and again.
We should fight false accusations with truth, not censorship. By acting
like a false accusation is a terrible, horrible thing, we conspire to
make it shameful. Instead, we should be conspiring to make it a non-event.
William
--
William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri