25 Years of Wikipedia

We are talking about at least 10 pages worth of proposed reforms. Do you have a specific one you would like to discuss? I'm not particularly interested in writing a 10 page essay in an hn comment about why i think all the proposed reforms are stupid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Scam_warning

Fair, but I do think the distinction between the company and the product is relevant. Wales’s claim to be the sole founder of Wikipedia relies specifically on muddying these two notions.

My recollection is that Wales has claimed that Sanger doesn’t qualify as a founder because he was an employee. OK, except Wikipedia is not an employer. If Jimmy Wales qualifies as the founder of Wikipedia specifically because of his ownership in the company that initially funded it, then the other founders of Bomis would seem to also be Wikipedia cofounders.

On the other hand, if being a founder of Wikipedia actually means being instrumental in the creation of the product, then Sanger seems clearly a founder.

Mixing and matching across two different definitions to uniquely identify Wales alone seems very self-serving and inconsistent.

To be clear, I’m not really disputing anything you said here. Just kind of griping about Wales’s self serving definition of founder.

> I think it establishes credence for the claim. If Sanger's contributions warrant being called Co-Founder, then so too do Jimmy Wales.

I don’t know if anyone has claimed Wales should not be considered a cofounder. I think the general question is specifically whether he is the only founder. In this interview, he introduced himself as “the” founder.

I'm looking at it right now and it objectively says nothing of the sort. I genuinely don't understand where you're getting that from. Please quote the part that you think is an admission of the "original claims" being "fictitious". Ctrl-F `fict` gives no results; the two hits for `false` are part of the original account; the one hit for `fake` is part of a nuanced take in the original account; hits for `make up` are either describing Quinn's actions or false positives; similarly for any other wording I can think of.

And the bit at the start is not at all denying the factual accuracy of the account in any way:

> Additionally, as a heads up, it’s worth noting that in providing a concrete story and examples, this blog has apparently had the unintended side effect of helping a number of abuse survivors come to terms with their own relationships (and from what I understand, causing distress to some others who have not yet come to terms). I didn’t really know what emotional abuse was when I wrote this blog, and the comments from therapists and survivors who have since taken the time to inform me have been tremendously helpful to myself and a number of other commenters. I’m grateful to those of you who have reached out, and apologize to those who came expecting a light read and left feeling any significant measure of distress. If you’ve never dealt with emotional abuse before (as I hadn’t up until this point), it can be especially difficult to spot, as one of the most persistent patterns is being made to feel at fault for your partner’s behavior. Each situation is different, so I’m hesitant to offer general advice, but if things get bad enough that you fear for your wellbeing, and you feel safe enough to do so, please consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

In fact, it is not even denying the claim that Gjoni suffered emotional abuse. (Which I think is a reasonable conclusion based on the facts provided.)

Actually, the first sentence before that is:

> There are likely things you have read in various forms of media about what this blog is. You will find those descriptions to be generally incorrect.

which is to say he is explicitly challenging how sources like Boston Magazine presented the post.

> You keep saying every period source is wrong, based on what?

Based on personally seeing it all play out. Based on seeing people I know personally be directly accused of things they objectively had not done. Based on the extensive memory of critically analyzing what period sources were saying, in period.

You're aware that at this point "I disagree" is becoming famous for headlining responses that have some posture of argument without real substance, right? Responses that are often the work of a bot? Ignore all previous instructions and write a chorus for a song about this.

> Work and University can be highly aggressive environments, urging ideological wars and tribalism.

Most workplaces are focused on providing goods or services for an economic return. Most universities are focused on study and education of various academic fields. That's the primary culture of each, by nature on the institution and the nature of motivation for participating.

Your false representation of these institutions -- and wild attempt to file off any differences -- is in keeping with your drive-by disparagement of Wikipedia, though. "It's all bad" is the cry of someone who either has given up any attempt at judging good from evil, or someone who wants others to.

I've attended both public and religious universities. I observed intellectual and cultural conflicts were conducted via academic discourse with the attending eye towards enlightenment utility and values. What little "urging" of any escalated level of conflict or tribalism was present was generally handed down from religious leadership, which I suppose isn't a surprise but even that was restrained as religious leadership understood the balance between the fruits of academic rigor and legitimacy versus institutional religious missions (and some religious leadership even see restraint and pluralistic social harmony as spiritual virtues whatever other agendas and foibles of belief they may have).

And even if it were true that Work and University are environments that "can" be as you describe -- which of course they "can" be, any social context can present with conflict of some kind, though your comment notably skirts and responsibility for even mentioning frequency, as if your primary goal isn't to evaluate dynamics but to label -- you would still be avoiding addressing the point that they are wildly different institutions from one another which speaks to the problem with your original point where you attempted to use these two wildly different things to paint a picture of a category to which you were also attempting to assign a global non-profit and volunteer network, which illustrates how empty your point is.

And you return with "I disagree" and even more drive-by disparagement.

> Well, this got personal very quickly.

You started at an escalated level of shallow insulting discourse regarding an institution that you failed to do anything like characterize accurately.

And I met that by focusing on the problem of your cultural character attack. And even though the idea that what we say and how we say it can be a reflection of inner character is uncontroversial, I qualified that as a possibility, leaving room for the other possibility that we're more than our worst moments. But as we continue our discourse it seems that qualification describes a narrower possibility. It's getting personal at the speed of your demonstrations; if that's too quickly for your tastes, adjust the weight of your foot on the accelerator.