On Oct 26, 2012, at 6:48 PM, Nathan wrote:
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Pete Forsyth
<peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> John, I want to say -- and I suspect many others here agree -- this is absolutely an
appropriate list to bring this up on, and I'm glad you did.
<snip>
That's all well and good, except it ignores the very good reasons why
any discussion of Mr. Jackson's specific circumstances should remain
on-wiki. In a list such as wikipedia-l or wikien-l etc., his comments
are quite unlikely to encounter anyone with expertise in his field.
Without such expertise, we might not see past the quite
scientific-sounding language he uses to discover the fact that his
"book" is self-published on Amazon. We might not be aware that he is
the host and former host of a multitude of blogs that appear to serve
as the only public forum for his theories, which seemingly have found
minimal or no acceptance in academia.
<snip>
Nathan
Nathan, your point is well taken. However, I don't think it reveals anything
"wrong" with posting to this list. After all, nobody on this list has deferred
to John's expertise or endorsed the idea that his version of the article should be
approved; and even if we did, it wouldn't be worth much (off-wiki) in establishing
consensus to change the article.
Much as I appreciate your point, I think it's worthwhile to be gracious about the
forum people choose to engage in. Wikipedia is an impenetrable maze even for many
experienced contributors. I think the various responses posted here illustrate that this
is a perfectly good venue for having this discussion, even if it isn't ideal for
meeting some of John's objectives.
John had frustrations and questions about Wikipedia's policies and culture; from where
I sit, that's fair game for an email list about Wikipedia.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]