Knol, sure, that sounds good to me.
QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 4th May 2010, 3:47pm)
I can recommend
against using
this wiki to work on it.
I think that this link-fest is going to be useful, but it is not going to be the Holy Grail. Many of the outlandish items that we all know about may appear innocuous to an outside observer. For example, I can point you to the Forms 990 that shows the WMF spending only 34%-41% of revenues on program expenses... but only by putting that in context against how much "real" charities spend (upwards of 80%, typically) does it become an outrage.
Even Jimmy saying "I regard it as a pseudonym, and I don't really have a problem with it" isn't all that explosive, until you understand how treacherous it was for him to be hiring a liar, then installing the liar on the Arbitration Committee.
You're right, in the case of the 34-41% statistic, the basic fact is not a "gotcha." That illustrates why I say we need to supply the context minimally necessary to explain why the evidence is important. We shouldn't wax eloquent with moral outrage. Simply the facts. With the quote about Essjay from Wales, well, it will be in a section about Essjay, and the context will allow people to see the outrage in it. Earlier on in the section's timeline, there will be something about Essjay being hired and having dinner with Jimbo and friends, at which time they must have noticed that he was not, in fact, a professor of theology. Then a few lines down, Jimmy installs Essjay as on the Arbitration Committee. Then a few more lines down, "I don't really have a problem with it." What more really needs to be said? The facts themselves are eloquent, and an essay writer using this compendium of wikihistory would find them very interesting. (I
think that's about what happened, but it's been a few years, so maybe I have the details off slightly.)