[WikiEN-l] Fwd: The counterattack of the PR companies

[Charles Matthews]

On 18 April 2012 19:20, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:

>
> We're not talking about some genuinely arcane thing like the definition of
> some term using a zillion clauses.  We're talking about a case where
> (regardless of any internal Wikipedia hierarchy which says that guidelines
> aren't true policies) the policy says "you can do it" and Jimbo says "you
> can't".  It doesn't take a legal department or even Wikilawyering to see
> the
> contradiction in that.


Sorry, this is exactly the point. The conversation where we explain very
patiently to someone what our definition of COI is and is not; and the
response is "you're telling me that if I sail close to the wind on NPOV but
don't quite go over the line, then whatever my potential conflict of
interest is, then I'm not breaking your rules". That conversation is
exactly why the whole business is arcane _to people who think they are paid
to sail close to the wind and get away with it_. E.g. people with good
legal advisers who are smart enough to listen to the advice and understand
the fine print.

That kind of thinking is toxic to relationships. That kind of thinking
causes the "tragedy of the commons". We do not want people exploiting
Wikipedia in that way.

>
>
>  To any normal person, this is simply a case of Wikipedia contradicting
>>> itself.  The fact that it's not because Jimbo doesn't make policy is a
>>> piece of Wiki-arcana that the outsider really can't be expected to
>>> understand.  The fact that we're deliberately trying to get the people to
>>> listen to Jimbo and ignore the actual policy just makes it worse.
>>>
>> See above. Jimbo can leverage his celebrity status to communicate to
>> people who only read business magazines and books. The fact is that there
>> is a published literature on Wikipedia, and people who really have an
>> interest in the site can read that, not the five-second version.
>>
>
> So we have someone who does read it and says "wait a minute, that's a
> contradiction".
>
> And I've been somewhat familiar with Wikipedia policies for a long time and
> I *still* can't figure this out, so it's not true that anyone with an
> interest can figure it out.


You said it.


> The best I can come up with is "ignore Jimbo",
> but that is clearly not what you think the answer is.
>
>
> No, it isn't. Wikipedia isn't a ruleset.

Charles