[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is a public toilet - says Jimbo?

[Steven Walling]

I think the only way to beat combative interviewers and win over the public
in those instances is to be humorous and self-deprecating. If they're out to
attack you with hyperbole, beat them to it.

On Jan 8, 2008 4:52 PM, Ian A Holton <poeloq at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Wed, 2008-01-09 at 00:23 +0000, doc wrote:
> > Jimbo very bravely granted an interview to the BBC's Hardtalk program.
> > It's a twenty minute televised grilling by a well-briefed journalist
> > with a tendency to go for the jugular.
> >
> >
> > You can watch it here:
> > http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/07/hardtalk/wales_31dec.ram
> >
> > The interviewer dragged up a negative comparison previously made  by
> > Britanica between wikipedia and a  public toilet. Jimbo, later in the
> > interview, chose to return to the analogy and extend it a bit to compare
> > wikipedia to a clear public toilet:
> >
> > I transcribe, with the usual disclaimers as to accuracy
> >
> > Jimbo: "It is very similar to, well as odd as the analogy might be, this
> > idea of a public restroom, it really is that you have no idea who just
> > cleaned the toilet [something inaudible about the "fancy hotel" for the
> > interview?] but, you know what, I'm sure it's clean, right, because the
> > hotel has a good reputation I don't need the name of the person who did
> > it, right, I know there's processes in place and it seems perfectly
> fine"
> > ....[interviewer is astonished at the bold comparison].....
> >
> > Jimbo "It's a good clean public toilet"
> >
> > Not sure how wise the self-depreciating humour is. It didn't exactly
> > work out for [[Gerald Ratner]]....?
> >
> >
> > Doc
> >
>
> Thanks Doc for the link and transcription, anybody know if it's possible
> to watch it under Linux?
>
> Ian [[User:Poeloq]]
>
>
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