[WikiEN-l] An example of a bad biography

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 1:49 PM,  <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>  This seems like an overemphasis that somehow we (the policy-abiding  editors)
>  are the cause instead of the vandals being the cause.  The  primary cause of
>  the vandalism rests with the vandals.  Our policies  address this case
>  spot-on, but nobody fixed the article.  Why didn't  they?  Maybe we need more
>  editors. Maybe we need an automatic "bad-word  robot" to collect examples and create
>  a "bad word page".  That would make  it a lot easier to monitor.  But this
>  case is not a result of our policies,  our policies say "don't do this".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine


The vandals will vandal. The libers will libel. The haters will hate.
The POV pushers will push. They are a small but real and unavoidable
facet of reality. A healthy Wikipedia would recognize it and mitigate
it.  The existing mitigation on English Wikipedia is rather limited
and highly dependent on chance.  ... basically a set of rules that say
"don't do this", but very little in the way of organized enforcement.

The English Wikipedia community is aware, or at least ought to be
aware, that these things happen routinely and t the community has one
of the most potent positions from which to make improvements. As such
it's the responsibility of the English Wikipedia community to try.

The argument that the vandals are ultimately responsible isn't
productive since none of us has the power to change the nature of man.
 We do have the power to change the operation of English Wikipedia.

If you think that some of the proposed improvements are too sweeping
and dramatic, then perhaps you should be working on making sure some
alternatives happen... since covering our ears and holding the status
quo simply can't last forever.