[Foundation-l] A dangerous precedent

Sun Dec 30 22:01:00 UTC 2007

> > None of this is "cheating" because the method is not what's important.
> > The real important part is the collection and distribution of free
> > information. Stomping around and threatening some kind of fork or
> > whatever because you don't like the methods of another community to
> > achieve our goals is counterproductive.
>
>
> Indeed. The problem with the Volapuk Wikipedia as it stands is that
> this was *not* done to achieve our goals, but as a sort of spam. What
> was the reason for tolerating this again?

I guess I'm not understanding the difference you are using here. The
bot is translating text from one wikipedia for use in another
wikipedia, so are you saying that wikipedia content itself is "spam"?
Or are you asserting (as I assume you are) that this user was trying
to artificially increase the vo.wikipedia article count to try and
lend undue credence to the Volapuk language?

A simple assumption of good faith here should prevent us from assuming
that any of these actions are nefarious, especially if they are
producing acceptable articles. Assuming good faith would also breed
tolerance, because we would assume that the articles were being
created in furtherance of our goals, not as some sort of underhanded
marketing scheme for a dead conlang.

--Andrew Whitworth