[WikiEN-l] Ayn Rand and Wikipedia

[Anthony]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 2:56 PM, <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:

> This is closer to Ayn's own view.
> My take on her view is "an altruist, is someone who gives up something our
> of their own *needs* (i.e. not their excess) to someone else who has done
> nothing to deserve it".  Ayn was not against giving your excess to
>  charity.


I'm much more concerned not about people giving away the product of their
efforts for free and without attribution, but for their insistence that
others do so as well.  "anyone who really cares about credit for the
authorship of his text, should really pick some other medium than
wikipedia", "I'm *glad* that it's not obvious who wrote an article", "Even
asking whether an article was written 90% by me or 2% or whatever [...]
sounds perilously close to WP:OWN."

Why would someone be *glad* that it's not obvious who wrote an article?
What rational reason could there possibly be for such a position?  I'll
grant that in some situations it might be rational to give away your work
for free and without attribution, but to be *glad* specifically *because*
you are not attributed, I don't see how that can possibly be considered a
moral position within the framework of Objectivism.