[WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

Sat Feb 15 09:00:16 UTC 2003

sannse at delphiforums.com wrote:

>Jonathan Wrote:
>
>>>The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this
>>>person a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.  
>>>
>The content is irrelevant here.  If this is our MIT vandal, then he
>caused hours of work for mav and others with numerous random text
>deletions and malicious changes under numerous user names.  
>
>If the information he is added is relevant, a neutral party can add it
>back at a later date.  (I'm leaving out my own views on the information
>he is adding because, as I said, that's not relevant to the question of
>whether he should be allowed to edit here).
>
There's always a need to separate the writing from the person who wrote 
it.  Just as we are not justified in claiming personal ownership to any 
of our contributions then similarly we are not justified in giving a 
vandal credit for his work.  Most of what these people write is nonsense 
or offensive, and is justifiably deleted.  If, however, in some rare 
instance our same vandal happened to write something meaningful and 
useful, there is no reason why that particular bit of writing should be 
deleted out of spite. Each contribution should be judged on its own merits

Eclecticology