Echoreply

Can we stop the Wikipedia witch hunts? December 15, 2007.

Will we be calling Jimmy Wales “Jacko” next? Will the tech paparazzi camp out in front of the homes of Wikipedia editors in hopes of catching them doing something human? Do they (the tech paparazzi) realize, or care that such sensationalism causes Wikipedia to be excluded in public class rooms? Such exclusion is not at all warranted even in full view of the dirty laundry that has been aired as of late, but its dangerously close to occurring.

The reference to “witch hunts” is interesting, because the Puritans were also known for their use of the Pillory, Stocks, Dunking Stool, and the infamous “Scarlet Letter” whereby miscreants who ran afoul of the church elders received shameful treatment characterized by raucous public indignities.

The bizarre “sanctions regime” at Wikipedia makes the Puritans look downright saintly by comparison.

Over the years, the erratic sanctions regime at Wikipedia has alienated a lot of people of good will who naively mistook Wikipedia for a serious academic enterprise, rather than a sophomoric MMPORG masquerading as an online encyclopedia.

And I clicked on this because I thought that someone had finally gotten a clue about the way that Wikipediot Cultmongers persecute anyone who diverges from their WikiΦaith.

Alas, still clueless …

Obviously written by one of the WikiΦaithΦools.

Jonny

He's about where I was a few months ago, when I was still highly pro-Wikipedia and preferred the media and public to get a positive view of it, while also getting increasingly aware of internal problems that I hoped and wished they could solve within the community. Now I've evolved into much more of a state where I believe more public awareness of the issues is necessary, to spur on the radical radiation therapy needed to cure the cancer within Wikipedia. I'm still pro-Wikipedia enough to hope it isn't terminal, though. I haven't gone over to the "Wikipedia Is Evil and Must Be Destroyed" crowd.

I prefer the public get an accurate view of Wikipedia.

When I undertook to edit and improve some poorly crafted articles, I had no opinion, one way or the other.

Perhaps my experiences on Wikipedia were just a one-off misadventure.

But having written them up, I find that my treatment appears to be a carbon copy of thousands of other editors, some of whom have publicly reported their similar cases.

If, as it now appears, there is a pattern of abuse, that's a bigger story than just one editor's story of woe.

Echoreply's characterizing Doran as "colorful" is an interesting piece of language craft.

I'm not too sanguine about the color of dried blood spattered on the wall.

Wikipedia in and of itself is ok. The way it is managed and by whom is not.