JayHenry's Attorney

I seek your counsel. I once had a friend who tended toward cynicism about the project. On most days I didn't share his cynicism. Then there are days like today. --JayHenry (talk) 05:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me stop my watch here... (we lawyers often wonder why they call it a stopwatch, ha ha).

Our firm has never had a job related to Wikipedia before, so it's difficult for me to relate. Well, maybe not. For example, I've been here one day, and someone has already reverted me, on your talk page, without comment. (In fact, before I was sidetracked by your comment, I was intent to ask them why, but (perhaps luckily) that will be avoided now.) I am even a little afraid of being blocked for some extension of the same non-rationale that was used to revert me. Perhaps because my user name carries the same eight characters as yours? Yet I don't claim to be you--and you're anonymous, so how could I?--and I have made no trangression in any of my edits to this project that would obviously warrant reverting them (or blocking me).

Your web site has an identity problem--anonymity is a founding principle, yet at the next moment you see many signs that something other than "an edit" is under examination. An entire culture built on identity behind anonymity is problematic, and can only lead to a feeling among those who enjoy authority that they will have particularly free reign once the authority is obtained. If the community were only a message board, this would be a small matter--but it purports to have a grand purpose, and it is entirely reasonable to suggest that your community was founded to embed itself in the real world--as a philosophically "free" source of information. Such an institution must carry the burden of social responsibility--yet an institution that anyone can walk into, leave a mark on anonymously, and walk out of cannot be socially responsible; it can only seek to be understood in the wider community as a limited, disclaimed entity---in the same way that one has varying standards for the cleanliness of a public bathroom, depending on where one finds that bathroom.

Your institution has not done either; it does not disclaim (prominently) that it is the Wild West (I have read the legalese, of course, but no one else does), nor does it accept social responsibility. Your community must make a choice, and accept the consequences of either. Your community fights the Wild West idea, ironically by commonly employing Wild West tactics---as my message to you was reverted by an uninvolved user without an explanation; as the user you wanted blocked was indeed blocked with no more than a few minutes' examination of the context, and with absolutely no discourse... both were responses in the name of "responsibility" that were more irresponsible than the actions that produced the response. Yet how can your project accept social responsibility as long as its real-world "interactions" are mediated by the anonymous--often including children, adolescents, and even dogs (for gosh sake).

I sense that the reflection involved in your community's founding principles has long been left behind, and that the way forward is to put it all out on the table again.

Good night, JayHenry, and fare thee well. JayHenry's Attorney (talk) 07:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)