[WikiEN-l] An example of a bad biography

[Jimmy Wales]

WJhonson at aol.com wrote:
>  
> In a message dated 4/29/2008 10:42:02 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
> jwales at wikia.com writes:
> 
> This  sort of harm is a direct result of Wikipedia policies and 
> procedures, and  is most likely *significantly* avoidable without 
> significantly  compromising on neutrality, quality, openness, and our 
> other  values.>>
> 
> 
> ------------------------
> 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".

I have said: I see no particular reason to blame any particular person.

Yes, our policies... quite ineffectually... forbid this.  But a mere 
prohibition completely misses the point.

There are policies in place which led to this:

1. Policies biased towards inclusionism mean that we have targets like 
this to start with, and people are afraid to delete them because they 
may get beaten up for being "overzealous" by people who think it is no 
big deal to call a private person names like this.

2. Policies which make it harder than it should be to semi-protect things.

3. .... others....

I don't think it is about robots: it is about changing attitudes and 
empowering people to get things done.