[WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales

[Oskar Sigvardsson]

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Larry Sanger
<sanger-lists at citizendium.org> wrote:
> Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list,
> but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open,
> transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech.

This is completely untrue. Both wikipedia and this mailing-list are
run by the Wikimedia foundation, a private entity, meaning that they
(and, by extension, the moderators and the administrators on
wikipedia) can absolutely decide what does or does not go on here.

This is a concept you should be very familiar with. On the Citizendium
Fundamentals page ( http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Fundamentals )
you find this little nugget of information: "...there will be a
process for rapidly removing rulebreakers from the project. While most
people will enjoy the privilege of contributing to the Citizendium if
they are able to make a positive difference, there is a blanket right
neither to contribute nor to participate in the project's governance."
As I understand it, you are quite happy to suspend the editing rights
of anyone that's causing trouble or causing strife within the
community (something I don't have any problem with; it's your project,
do what you like).

Wikipedia is likewise not a free speech zone, nor is it some sort of
grand democratic experiment. Just because anyone can edit initially,
it doesn't mean that we have to keep what you say live on our site.
Same thing goes for our mailing-list.

If you spend even a little time on our site, you'll find that there
have literally been hundreds (if not thousands) of extremely
destructive trolls who have made exactly the same argument that you
are making. "You're restricting my freedom of speech! I'm gonna report
you to the Hague!" By acting like this, and using this argument,
you're rapidly becoming part of that group. Is that something you
desire? Let me ask you, if someone made that argument on CZ, what
would you do?

I admire both you and Jimmy quite a bit, but on this issue, you're
both acting like petulant children. Grow the fuck up.

--Oskar