[WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales

[Larry Sanger]

I can recognize when I am no longer welcome.  I didn't really believe I ever
was welcome to begin with, but I was willing to try.  I've always been
optimistic.

I assume that, since the self-appointed silencers among you are apparently
operating with impunity, I could not possibly continue to press my case here
without continuing to cause an uproar among them.  So I will stop.  Those
who wanted to silence me have done so successfully, just as your fearless
leader did on [[User talk:Jimmy Wales]].

On the issue of whether I am entitled to speak out here, I did want to make
two points.

First, whether or not it really is, Wikipedia (like Citizendium and other
similar projects) ought to be democratic, open, and devoted to free speech
in a certain sense.  The sense is that, as long as a person is generally
abiding by the rules of the community, he has a right to speak out in public
forums, even if others find it "annoying."  If a mob of others are outraged
at what he says, they have the right to try to refute him (under the same
reasonable rules); but they do not have the right to demand that he be
silenced.  As soon as they gain such authority, the mob is de facto making
the rules, which is fine for people who love mobs, but absolutely terrible
for most of humanity and for anybody who cares about justice and other
things that cannot be made into silly acronyms.

Second, virtually all of the arguments of those claiming that I lack the
right to air my concerns on this list work as arguments that I should not
have been allowed to post in the first place.  Surely the moderators were
right to allow me to post, and I was grateful to them for letting me do so.
Nevertheless, since first posting, all I have been doing is defending the
relevance, or significance, of my open letter to Jimmy Wales, or my right to
make it--not really discussing its content at all.  That's a pretty sad
state of affairs, I think.  I actually think that a large majority of
Wikipedians probably sympathize with my letter, but that they are
intimidated by those on this list who have the ability to make up arguments
justifying censorship of someone with a serious, well-justified complaint
about one of the most important leaders of the project.

As to the attacks on Citizendium, I'm not going to bother replying.  Those
who are inclined to be sympathetic toward us will find out about us from
more reliable sources, or from their own observation.  Suffice it to say
that the people who are lobbing the most vicious attacks either know nothing
about the project, or are deeply philosophically opposed to it, and in
either case, their opinion is not worth very much, as far as I'm concerned.
As to those who might be inclined to sympathize with us, but who are
intimidated into silence here on this list, and by mobs in general, let's
just say that you're very welcome to join us.

I do want to say one last thing to the more reasonable people in the
community, who I know have been following this, and who stick things out in
the face of what looks like a brainless mob: while I long ago decided I
couldn't join you, I do admire and sympathize with your situation.
Wikipedia is great--it's hard to abandon.  There are a lot of very smart and
decent people on Wikipedia, and if I have harsh words about the Wikipedia
community from time to time, I hope you'll understand I'm not talking about
you.

--Larry (I'll be unsubscribing right after sending this)

P.S. Apropos of nothing but a throwaway remark by someone on the list: I
have never, ever, not even once, used any account on Wikipedia (or
Citizendium) other than User:Larry Sanger.