[WikiEN-l] No benefit from violence (Ed, you misunderstood my points!)

Sat Oct 4 03:30:14 UTC 2003

Ed,
This is the very thing that I’m arguing against:

“Some people think that 2 opposing sides can battle it out, and let the
best man win. A sort of zero-sum game.”

We want STALEMATED zero sum games, like a stalemate in chess or the outcome 
of the Iraq-Iran War! This only happens when the power, luck, and strategy 
of both sides balances out! I’m saying that RK’s absence would weaken his 
side to the extent that the pattern of stalemates would shift to a pattern 
of best man winning (i.e. Sv). I don’t favor ‘Wiki Darwinism!’ I only say 
that it’s acceptable in this context for a number of reasons stated in the 
earlier postings: it yields a unique perspective, it yields NPOV by 
stalemate, and we cannot expect anything else (BTW, I provided an analysis 
in an earlier posting illuminating why flame wars are unavoidable for these 
sets of articles).

Yes, there are some articles that are not the product of conflict, 
stalemate, and synthesis, but this cannot be avoided. An article on, for 
instance, lists of Palestinian villages destroyed, is inherently a 
pro-Palestinian, and an article on, for instance, anti-Semitic statements 
attributed to Palestinian figures, inherently the domain of RK. However, 
their tensions will check for accuracy, but not change the orientation of 
the article. I'm referring to the pivotal articles (e.g., Israel, History of 
Israel, PLO, Hamas, Arafat, Sharon, etc.). That's where the tension (and the 
equal strength of the opposing forces) is needed.

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