QUOTE(Friday @ Wed 23rd September 2009, 7:33pm)
QUOTE(Shalom @ Wed 23rd September 2009, 5:08pm)
QUOTE(Anonymous editor @ Tue 22nd September 2009, 9:22pm)
Evidently, Shalom cannot handle the truth. See his current, childish signature.
You can't handle the truth. Thank you for finally noticing. Look, would you prefer to delete the 350 articles I've created and the thousands of productive edits I have made both to mainspace and Wikipedia space? Would Wikipedia be better off without those articles and edits? The damage of my vandalism in every case has been temporary - I have never succeeded in putting in vandalism that lasted more than one month unnoticed (except one time when I reverted it myself after three weeks). In contrast, the benefit of my article work is permanent until Wikipedia collapses: people are still reading my articles and learning from them. So I stand by my statement that my overall effect on Wikipedia and its readers has been positive. (Heck, I went on a vandalism attack this past week, and I
still say my overall effect since 2005 has been positive. It will take many, many more vandalism sprees to change that fact, if it ever can be changed, not that I want it to change.)
I can only conclude that people like this are not adults and have never had a job.
"Gee boss, I did my job most of the time, and I only occasionally shit on the floor! And even when I did, it got cleaned up pretty quickly..."
It's more like, "Gee, boss, I raised $100,000 for your nonprofit but I once pulled the fire alarm as a prank and forced everyone to leave the office for 15 minutes." Yes, I could get fired for doing that, but (except in truly extraordinary circumstances) pulling the fire alarm does not cause $100,000 worth of damage; therefore, my net effect on the nonprofit is still overwhelmingly positive.
Look, Wikipedia is a volunteer project. In many cases, had I not done a certain productive action, nobody would have done it at all, ever; and in other cases, nobody would have done something similar for many months. This is analogous to raising money for a nonprofit that would otherwise not receive the money. I'm not sure how apt the fire drill prank is: it's really overstating the problem because I disrupted individuals, not the whole working group of the project.
Edit: Or you could go with the "crap on the floor" analogy if you prefer. My point is: I was not doing a job that someone else could do equally well (or perhaps a little better or worse). I was doing volunteer work that, had I not done it, would otherwise not have been done. My value to Wikipedia should be measured by what Wikipedia would be if it lacked those 350 articles and 10,000+ productive mainspace edits.
This post has been edited by Shalom: