QUOTE(Cla68 @ Tue 31st March 2009, 11:16pm)
Still, like I said in the other thread, it's understandable that some writers might be dismayed at the lack of respect that article writers receive from the Wiki game-players. I can think of several names of former arbitrators and other influential admins right off the top of my head who really didn't even try to hide their indifference or ambivalence towards article writers. I think this may be what is bothering, at least in part, YellowMonkey.
An excllent example of this attitude and the mistaken assumptions which underpin it (to the extent that it is thought out at all) is provided by Jayron32, high school chemistry teacher and fellow member of LaraLove's "bathrobe cabal," endorsing Peter Damian's ban on Wikipedia's administrators' noticeboard:
QUOTE(Jayron32)
"On the balance, and over a long period of time, any topic worth writing about well and notable enough to include in Wikipedia will eventually be written about by someone else. At Wikipedia, we value our contributors, but nothing anyone does is indespensable. If you are going to create content and be disruptive; well someone else will come along some day and create the content anyways and
not be disruptive. I will take my chances with the good person who has no intent of making a point or who has no alterior motive beyond merely adding good content over guys like this.
Endorse the block."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=250089161This may be so in where a generic curriculum is to be offered, and enough pay to ensure that there is at least someone willing to take your job, but in real academia, as in the arts, the notion that talented scholars are interchangeable is wildly wrong. Very often, there are only a few, or even just one, expert in any given subject, were it not for whose existence and employment, the work would simply never have been done. Even if it is the case that a given Wikipedia article of the same title would be created anyhow, to assume that it doesn't matter who winds up writing it indicates either a depraved indifference to all content below the title, or an remarkably unrealistic faith in Wikipedia's content policies to ensure consistency, at whatever quality, regardless of who is entrusted with applying them.