[WikiEN-l] Yet another PR company busted ... apparently it's all our fault

[Charles Matthews]

On 16 November 2012 14:38, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 2:28 PM, David Goodman <dggenwp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There is a  fundamental difference between our inefficient and
>> sometimes unsuccessful attempts to do things right, and their
>> deliberate attempts to do things wrong.

> Yes, but we must not forget that PR people are not the only people who use
> Wikipedia to do things wrong. By operating the completely open system we
> do, we enable *anyone* to do wrong, be they PR or staff working for a
> company, or a company's detractors.
>
> The community is responsible for managing Wikipedia. And whether Wikipedia
> is easy or difficult to abuse is the community's responsibility.

I suppose this line of argument might be of some interest to someone
looking for a dissertation topic in moral philosophy (as has been
noted, it is off-topic). What happens to the notion of "agency"
online?

Still, I can't accept that it makes sense of some putative connection
inherent in wiki technology, collective responsibility, and mere
participation as an editor. Talking about the "community" as a way of
avoiding talking about the intentions of the actors here is a neat
trick. I think the meaning of "wrong" is being slurred here. I
certainly don't think one should talk about enabling when editing is
always a conditional permission rather than any kind of right, and the
permission is given for a definite reason. And so on. The usual
approach would surely be to look first at who is hosting the site when
you seek to assign responsibility.

Charles