QUOTE(Law Lord @ Sun 20th September 2009, 7:10am)
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I understand now, what it is in German spirit that has resulted in some very poor choices over the course of recent history. How sad that this is reflected so clearly by the behaviour of the members of deWiki.
To be fair, I doubt that a cultural emphasis on efficiency, order, and "security" normally results in a mass tendency towards racism, religious persecution, or the devaluation of human life - at least not in most societies. It probably
does result in authoritarianism though, along with a rigidly hierarchical power structure and a near-obsession with rules, making it an ideal proving ground for Wikipedianism.
Germans are NOT stupid people; most of them know that the mistakes of the past must (or at least should) never be repeated. Unfortunately, they've yet to realize what a mistake Wikipedia is... Hopefully, time will fix that.
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When these people (deWiki people) make so poor choices in simple human interaction ...(snip)... it certainly poses the question: how can anybody trust the validity of anything they write at all?
Well, THAT you could say of almost any culture that produces a Wikimedia project. Each national/ethnic culture has its own idiosyncrasies, and any encyclopedia-like websites produced by those cultures will reflect them. That's just another reason why people should want their encyclopedias to be produced by properly-trained, unbiased academics and publishers, rather than cultures.