QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sat 29th November 2008, 7:11pm)
Welcome to WR. I would suggest you take the time to carefully read and come to understand the positions of what you say are "extreme" posters. Many of us WR "hardliners" have views (responsibility/ accountability) that would be very mainstream outside of WP. The only people currently with nutter views are a few isolated outliers and some WP fanatic loyalists. You will also need to establish your ideas with the quality of your contributions here. Your stated "credentials" will not possess as much currency as you might hope.
I make no attempt at using my "credentials" as bargaining chips for, well, for anything. I was expressing my surprise at the number of editors who do have those credentials and yet do not contribute or, indeed, seem to follow developments here. Call it "thinking aloud," I suppose.
I would agree with your colouring of the majority of WR's "extreme" views as rather ordinary outside of Wikipedia itself. When Wikipedia comes up in the course of everyday conversation (which it rarely does, admittedly), the overwhelming impression is that it is "unreliable" or "inaccurate." No opinion is ever expressed on the community—which, to the reader, is often invisible—but I would suspect many of them would share WR's view that it is a bureaucratic and unaccountable oligarchy. I disagree, of course, but, as a contributor to Wikipedia and a member of that oligarchy, I'm naturally biased.
I do maintain, however, that a proportion of opinions expressed here on WR are those of individuals disillusioned with Wikipedia as a result of personal experiences. (I think primarily here of banned editors with a qualm over Wikipedia administrator X, Y, or Z.)