[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia slowdown

Thu Nov 21 22:02:33 UTC 2002

On 11/21/02 4:34 PM, "Jonathan Walther" <krooger at debian.org> wrote:
> At 18, I would have had no problem remembering people mentioning on the
> mailing list here "be careful about using the URL interface to doing
> raw SQL queries, because some queries can REALLY SLOW THE DATABASE
> DOWN".  We have no idea about this young mans technical abilities, good
> or bad.  We do know he was immature and unstable enough to threaten to
> commit suicide on a public mailing list.  He also posted on my
> Eleutherphilic Creed article yesterday that the Wikipedia didn't
> provide any value over the same information being scattered all over
> the web...  Sounds to me like he doesn't really care about the Wikipedia
> itself, and is getting a charge out of getting people here riled up.

No, he really cares about Wikipedia. That's the problem.

http://qwert.diaryland.com/021120_73.html

This whole scene is a repetition of tedious Usenet wars, where both sides
think that being online allows for more rudeness, not less. Lir's rudeness
comes in the form of seeing wp az jst ant4r kewl haxor site fiting r fr33d0m
and teasing all the stuck-up people who treat him like an idiot, and the
rudeness on the other side is from people being stuck up and treating him
like an idiot.

Or to put it another way: once you assume Lir's behavior comes from not
caring about Wikipedia, you've missed what's actually going on.

And if you take his "i'm going to commit suicide" comment seriously, you're
missing what's going on.

He's fallen into the insidious trap that using an online persona can create:
acting to meet expectations. That is to say, he's already got the standard
anti-authority mindset of young college students, but people here have
treated him like he's an unstable, deranged girl, and whenever he makes some
inane comment people react, so he keeps it up.