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Old 07-19-2007   #1
Big Juice
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Vancouver Canada
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Danny Sullivan Allegedly Succumbs to Wikipedian Bullying

Recently Durova, a Wikipedia administrator, wrote an article for Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Land web site entitled SEO Tips & Tactics From A Wikipedia Insider. Given Durova’s history as an administrator this brought on some comments by various people, some in favor of Wikipedia and some – not so much.

One of the comments was by some self appointed Durova watchdog that goes by the name DurovaWatch and actually posts on the subject at http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Durova. Personally I haven’t read it but I did read his comments. Now aside from calling this Durova person out on a couple of her positions I didn’t read anything that looked all that bad, just one persons opinion.

Soon after posting his comments one of the Wikipedian champions, JEHochman, came forward and all but told Danny to turn off the comments and went even further to call the person commenting a troll. Once again, from what I read, it was just some person who questions Durova’s tactics as an administrator over at Wikipedia.

A few other comments were left by various people and the one that strikes me is the one left by Gregory Kohs who posts on SEL by the handle of thekohser. He seems to be rightfully offended by JEHochman’s expressed thoughts on him being DurovaWatch. From where I sit it is JEHochman who overstepped the bounds of good taste in the comments.

After a few more posts, some by Danny himself cautioning people to play nice, and from what I have read they were, DurovaWatch posts a couple of more comments and once again nothing slanderous, Danny elects to shut off the comments. I don’t know for the life of me what DurovaWatch had said in his last comments that could have prompted this overreaction, perhaps it was how he accurately called out JEHochman by writing and I quote “If you are interested in extending WP:RULES off wiki, you just violated WP:NPA (no personal attacks), WP:CIVIL, as well as implying that content is subject to censure.”

From where I sit it would appear that Danny Sullivan has succumbed to the will of a Wikipedian bully by shutting off the comments on this story but what I don’t get is why? If you are going to pull down the comments from your site because some of the favoured few don’t like being called out, how can the people who go to your site continue to trust your objectivity?
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