On 05/08/04 21:43, Robert wrote:
More off-topic slander. I'm not surprised. I
don't even
contribute to Wikipedia anymore, ever since many members on
this list became actively anti-Semitic. It was bad enough
when proven Nazis like Stervertigo, and his cheerleader
Martin (MyRedDice) Harper were allowed to push their views
with the full support of this list.
I don't know if you can appreciate that this looks like the words
of someone off on crack, but it does to me. Perhaps I'm wrong.
It got worse when various list members wrote and
telephoned
me privately in support, but admitted that they would never
speak out here in public because they were afraid of being
ganged up on (they were correct.)
Eegh. Send them to me. I've had legal threats from the Church of
Scientology for my other hobbies (dealing with the CoS), and pretty
much *anything* looks light-duty after you've been through their
mill.
It got even worse when your so-called arbitartors
publicly
demanded that I accept admitted Nazis and work with them.
(Such quotes are still archived.) Sane people would see
that as obvious Jew-baiting; similarly, demanding that our
black contributors work with members of the Ku Klux Klan
would be racist black-hating. Yet sadly when this was
brought to the attention of this list, none of you
mentioned any problem with this.
I swear to God that I tried to work with Paul Vogel. And I'm
actually ashamed that I cheered when he was banned for a year.
It got even worse: In recent weeks Steve Rubenstein
warned
you all about another Jew-hater who was constantly
vandalizing Wikipedia and clearly pushing Nazi websites.
Yet in response, you refused to ban this person.
Outrageously many of you said that you wanted this Nazi's
views, and that you wanted to find a way to keep him on as
a contributor.
It would have been nice to have had access (not blind acceptance of,
but access to) to Vogel's views without his personality.
Every wonder why so many people leave this project? It
has
been taken over by leftists,
And rightists. (Political partisans in general. I mind Usenet
newsgroup aus.politics, which, by the time I gave up on it in
1997, pretty clearly divided not by left or right, but by lucid
or frothing.)
anarchists, anti-science
whackos and hatemongers.
Mr-Natural-Health's Alternative Medicine project looks entertaining.
I'll have to cast a closer editorial eye over it. He looks heavily
into rule lawyering. My goodness I love those sort of people.
do not want. I should have listed to my colleagues
last
year, when they told me that they forbade their students
from using Wikipedia. They said it was anti-science,
anti-Semitic, out of control, and that without empowered
moderators it merely created facts by voting.
I would actually like to hear more about this.
That is the kind of leftist Stanlinism-type
"research" that
truly educated peopel abhor. Facts are not created by the
consensus of the most radical writers, no matter what the
deconstructionists and leftists among you might wish to
believe.
You appear to have POV against leftists. I'll have you know
I read the Guardian and vote Liberal Democrat!
While Jimbo's idea of an open-source encyclopedia
still is
a very good idea, Wikipedia will never be achieve this
goal. At best, it will be a good feeder and working sandbox
for articles that can be vetted by professionals for a
second-level, stable open-source encyclopedia, like Nupedia
was supposed to be. But the Wikipedia itself will at best
become well-known and infamous...not good.
The reason the partisan trolls of all stripes are a problem on WP
is that this is, in fact, the place, and that this is blindingly
obvious. We're writing source material for this century.
(So I'd better get the Australian Indie Rock project together
quick smart!)
- d.