By E. A. Barbour

PART I:

One of the first things apparent to a visitor to Wikipedia, who tries to examine and understand its perverse internal “culture”, is the obsession with secrecy and obscurity. In fact, it is routine to see discussion on noticeboards, between people using goofy pseudonyms, about “privacy”. Typically, these may be parsed as “Who are you?”, often answered by cries of “incivility”, because some has dared to ask someone’s real name. Somehow, Wikipedia has taken up the obsession with secrecy and personal anonymity that were constant features of the “hacker underground”. It was understandable that a “black hat” hacker would not want his real identity known, as he was often involved in illegal activities. What possible advantage would anonymity offer to someone helping to write an online “open” encyclopedia?

The libertine culture of Wikipedia started very early in its history. In the first year of the Wikipedia-l mailing list, you find posts like this one, from Lee Crocker, posted March 14:

“I understand your position, Larry, and I agree that you need the warning. But “DO NOT COPY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL” would work just as well, and would not be personally offensive to me and other dedicated, moral, hard-working, law-abiding, intelligent people working to abolish copyright law as it is today.

“Imagine it like this: bigamy is illegal in every state. It is frowned upon by most religions and most people. But there are some people who are quite decent, loving, moral people working to change the laws and attitudes to make it legal. For them (and especially those not actively practicing) to see themselves called “perverts” or “criminals” in public is offensive, and doing so is most definitely a biased expression of political opinion, even though it happens to be the opinion of the vast majority.”

…continue reading Wiki-Paranoia