QUOTE(Coldplay Expert @ Sun 10th January 2010, 9:38pm)
And how did this thread go from bashing me to talking about minors with beer and cars?
This is not a thread about you; this is a thread containing a couple of mentions of you, which is itself a sub-thread of
a thread containing
one mention of you.
This is going to sound patronizing, and it's honestly not meant to be; you might want to have more of a read around this site to get a feel for it. WR is neither a slightly-more-rowdy subforum of Wikipedia, nor the Evil Attack Site some of the WP regulars try to paint it as; it's a site dedicated to discussing ways to prevent and ways to mitigate the damage caused by the currently seriously malfunctioning Wikipedia experiment, which has gone from being a well-intentioned experiment run by a few nerds to being a source of defamation and misinformation so powerful that it's having a genuine and noticeable corrosive effect on the world's media.
One of the key issues in that is the discussion of the pros and cons of the Wikimedia Foundation's almost unique decision to allow children unrestricted access to positions of authority in which they're obliged to make serious ethical and legal decisions (often on extremely sensitive issues, such as
the ethics of publishing material likely negatively to impact real-life medical diagnoses, the ethics of a charitably-funded educational institution maintaining
a large-scale collection of hardcore pornography, or the appropriate way to handle
defamation on a massive scale, which is beyond the ability of a rapidly shrinking volunteer group to control completely). Many people feel that people below the age of legal responsibility should not be taking decisions of this nature, and that allowing them to do so has serious moral and legal implications for the adults involved.
It's a perennial discussion, and one that's impossible to have on Wikipedia itself due to the over-zealous enforcement of the "civility policy". (Anyone questioning the
status quo on Wikipedia is likely to be accused of "personal attacks", under Wikipedia's unique interpretation of the phrase, and summarily blocked). Consequently, WR is the only place where the discussion can be held reasonably in a forum read by those able to have an influence on Wikipedia itself, and you'll find that this is one of those discussions which is raised regularly here.
Despite its reputation, Wikipedia Review actually has a considerably higher level of debate than Wikipedia itself, and I for one hope you're not blocked without good cause; until the next generation of Wikipedia users, who haven't yet had time to realize the downsides of the project, get involved in the debate, then the artificial "us-and-them" mentality will continue. Just remember, this
isn't Wikipedia, and differing views are allowed; just be prepared to justify any claim you make.