Mike Godwin, "reporter" Options

[EricBarbour]

Did you know that Mike Godwin occasionally writes for Reason, that famous libertarian rag?

Did you know that Mike visited the Occupy Oakland protest?

[mnemonic]

Glad you all found the Occupy Oakland piece worth reading and discussion. Frank Ogawa Plaza is only three blocks from my front door, so it was easy to visit the site, and I walk by it several times a week.

[thekohser]

Glad you all found the Occupy Oakland piece worth reading and discussion. Frank Ogawa Plaza is only three blocks from my front door, so it was easy to visit the site, and I walk by it several times a week.

Mike, are you enjoying your work at Mad River? How is it different from the work you did for the Wikimedia Foundation?

[mnemonic]

Glad you all found the Occupy Oakland piece worth reading and discussion. Frank Ogawa Plaza is only three blocks from my front door, so it was easy to visit the site, and I walk by it several times a week.

Mike, are you enjoying your work at Mad River? How is it different from the work you did for the Wikimedia Foundation?

Yes, Mad River is great. The difference is mainly that with Mad River I've been able to work with the project almost from scratch. Wikimedia Foundation was in a different place in its growth curve when I came on board in 2007, and is in an even more different place now. (I have to caution you that obviously I'm barred by attorney-client privilege and other legal and ethical constraints from talking about any privileged or confidential matters regarding either Mad River or Wikimedia Foundation. I'm happy, however, to answer questions here about my coverage of the Occupy Oakland intervention.) I enjoyed just about everything in my work at Wikimedia Foundation, and my successor, Geoff Brigham, and I get along quite well.



This post has been edited by mnemonic:

[thekohser]

...obviously I'm barred by attorney-client privilege and other legal and ethical constraints from talking about any privileged or confidential matters regarding either Mad River or Wikimedia Foundation.

Party pooper.

[mnemonic]

...obviously I'm barred by attorney-client privilege and other legal and ethical constraints from talking about any privileged or confidential matters regarding either Mad River or Wikimedia Foundation.

Party pooper.

I should add that I'm happy to talk about the nonprivileged aspects of the FBI matter (or non-privileged aspects of other issues I've worked on) as well. It's just that Eric Barbour opened this topic for the purpose of ridiculing me as a reporter, so it seems appropriate to reserve it for that topic. I wouldn't want to be the cause of topic drift.

[EricBarbour]

I should add that I'm happy to talk about the nonprivileged aspects of the FBI matter (or non-privileged aspects of other issues I've worked on) as well. It's just that Eric Barbour opened this topic for the purpose of ridiculing me as a reporter, so it seems appropriate to reserve it for that topic. I wouldn't want to be the cause of topic drift.

If it helps: I posted that not because it's "bad reporting", it's actually good. Thing is, Mike, your stint
at the WMF has turned you into a lightning-rod for Wikipedia critics, and (sad to say) you've become
a slightly absurd figure because of it. You're now a "net-celebrity", partly because of the WMF and
partly because of your time at the EFF, and (of course) that "Godwin's Law" bit. Celebrities tend to
become targets of criticism, as you well know.

And as for Oakland: can't stand the place. I would not have bought real estate there, even if I had known
about the value explosion of the last 30 years, in advance. It's a nasty town. The treatment of the
Occupy people should underline that. I'd even call it the "Buffalo NY of the west coast", if there weren't
several equally-good candidates on the west coast. It's starting to develop the symptoms of a corrupt
former industrial city, even though it hasn't "died" yet, as Buffalo has. Complaints about the Oakland
police have become legion.

(Just btw: feel free to ignore Ottava. And again, if you'd like to learn things about Wikipedia that
no one has ever told you, PM me.)

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Fusion]

(of course) that "Godwin's Law" bit.

Oh yes I wanted to ask. Mr. Godwin, did you really invent that law all by yourself?

[mnemonic]

(of course) that "Godwin's Law" bit.

Oh yes I wanted to ask. Mr. Godwin, did you really invent that law all by yourself?

Yes, although my friend Richard Sexton claims he invented it independently. I wrote about this most recently here:

I Seem To Be A Verb: 18 Years Of Godwin's Law

And I was interviewed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here:

Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Mike Godwin, 2010.

[GlassBeadGame]

(of course) that "Godwin's Law" bit.

Oh yes I wanted to ask. Mr. Godwin, did you really invent that law all by yourself?

Yes, although my friend Richard Sexton claims he invented it independently. I wrote about this most recently here:

I Seem To Be A Verb: 18 Years Of Godwin's Law

And I was interviewed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here:

Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Mike Godwin, 2010.

Nobody else wants to take this one? Really? I mean I've seen a dozen Reviewers mock this conceit in the past. WR has become a bunch of fawning Wikipedians.

It is a "law" only in the sense that it intends to proscribe behavior of UseNet participants and the like. It is only "invented" in the sense of somebody might have said it. Not much to be proud of really.

[mnemonic]

(of course) that "Godwin's Law" bit.

Oh yes I wanted to ask. Mr. Godwin, did you really invent that law all by yourself?

Yes, although my friend Richard Sexton claims he invented it independently. I wrote about this most recently here:

I Seem To Be A Verb: 18 Years Of Godwin's Law

And I was interviewed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here:

Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Mike Godwin, 2010.

Nobody else wants to take this one? Really? I mean I've seen a dozen Reviewers mock this conceit in the past. WR has become a bunch of fawning Wikipedians.

It is a "law" only in the sense that it intends to proscribe behavior of UseNet participants and the like. It is only "invented" in the sense of somebody might have said it. Not much to be proud of really.

That's an unusual interpretation of Godwin's Law -- nothing in my actual wording "proscribes" anything. And so far as I know, even the paraphrasing of Godwin's Law, quite common in media these days (e.g., Rachel Maddow has quoted it more than once), doesn't proscribe anything.

I used "invented" primarily because Fusion used that verb in his/her query.

As for "proud of" -- well, I don't know if "proud" is the right word. Basically, as I've written elsewhere, I was offended by glib hyperbolic use of Nazi and Hitler comparisons, so I designed an experiment to see if one person could change public discourse on the Internet. The fact that Godwin's Law migrated beyond the Internet to mainstream media was an unintended, unexpected result. I don't know that it makes sense to be "proud of" a result that one did not expect.

This post has been edited by mnemonic:

[Somey]

That's an unusual interpretation of Godwin's Law -- nothing in my actual wording "proscribes" anything. And so far as I know, even the paraphrasing of Godwin's Law, quite common in media these days (e.g., Rachel Maddow has quoted it more than once), doesn't proscribe anything.

To be fair, he was referring to how the "law" is used now in online discussions, not how it was originally intended to be used, if it was even intended to be "used" in some fashion at all. I can't imagine you could have predicted the degree to which it's become part of the vernacular when you originally stated it...

The fact is, there really are people who probably should be compared to Hitler and the Nazis, in practical terms at least - the real problem is that "Hitler" and "Nazi" are such loaded words because of the Holocaust that you can't make those comparisons without essentially implying that the person being compared wants to kill millions of Jews. But there are plenty of fascists and fascistic ideas out there that should be exposed as being just that, and many of them have nothing at all to do with antisemitism.

Heck, I've probably offended a whole bunch of people just by saying all that just now, for which I humbly apologize.

[mnemonic]

[quote name='Somey' date='Fri 6th January 2012, 8:47pm' post='292938']
[quote name='mnemonic' post='292745' date='Thu 5th January 2012, 8:41pm']

But there are plenty of fascists and fascistic ideas out there that should be exposed as being just that, and many of them have nothing at all to do with antisemitism.

[/quote]

I have made the same point myself, more than once.

I hid it in this column, for example:

http://www.jewcy.com/arts-and-culture/i_se...ars_godwins_law