An Explanation About The Problems At WikiAnswers

Written by Sarah Cain Thursday, 10 January 2008 05:32

I am posting this e-mail here, so that other WikiAnswers Supervisors and contributors can see why the alternative medicine section is now unsupervised.

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To:  Crystal Williams
Subject:  Removal as Supervisor
Date:  Tue, 8 Jan 2008 19:35:03 -0500 (EST)

Dear Crystal,

I recently read the message that you sent to Thomas (Corriher) regarding his removal as a supervisor.  I find it astounding that on your first or perhaps second day with your old position, instead of writing to people to let them know that you have returned... you threaten them mainly in regard to incidents that were over long ago.  Then you complain about his interference with a contributor who "contributes" by removing peoples answers entirely, or writing "This is not scientific" underneath all of them.  You did this even AFTER you noticed that the contributor in question had already been warned by TWO other supervisors.

It is disturbing that you have created a vendetta against Corriher (and me in the past), because we had hoped to keep the alternative medicine section about alternative medicine.  Despite the 28 modern-medicine categories under health, plus sub-categories, there will always be some doctor, pharmacist, or pharmaceutical investor who will disrupt the alternative area because it is a threat to their business.  As long as that is allowed to go on, you should just go ahead and remove all alternative medicine categories, and all supervisors for that area (which I see you have already started doing).  No questions in that area can be honestly answered if we have to consult you for permission before we can warn any user who is threatened by the spread of free information.

As such, you should go ahead and remove me as a supervisor as well.  While I did enjoy helping people to cure their 'incurable' ailments whilst on WikiAnswers, I now know that allowing people to maliciously remove previous answers and replace them with gibberish is far more important.

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Sarah Cain

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Here is an an actual message from Crystal, from whence she flippantly noted that she (as an impartial administrator) reworded other people's questions to censor implications of effective medical alternatives.  It was only alternative medicine that needed such management, by the way, and she went so far as to insultingly compare it with "spirituality".

To:  Sarah Cain
Subject:  Removal as Supervisor
Date:  Thu, 8 Jan 2009 17:16:03 -0500 (EST)

Hi there!

Thanks for sending those over, Sarah.  I have taken some time to go through everything, and do believe that these issues can be resolved.  Obviously, these are questions that have opposing viewpoints.  And on WikiAnswers we invite everyone to share their views on questions that ask for opinions or on those that can, in fact, have more than one answer.  While we strive for one great answer for each question, this is not always possible.  You will find this quite often in Religion and Spirituality and also Health - particularly Alternative Medicine.

Questions should be as neutral as possible.  So, I have changed "How effective is wu-yi tea for losing weight?" to "What are opinions on how effective wu-yi tea is for losing weight?" and "What is the name of a plant from Madagascar that cures diabetes?" to "What is the name of the plant from Madagascar that has reportedly cured some cases of diabetes?"  The other is fine as is.  And questions on medications would be phrased in the same manner (i.e. What are opinions on how effective Prozac is for treating anxiety?)

I do ask that you keep opposing viewpoints within the answers, only removing those elements that are not directly addressing the question.  Snide remarks, insults and so on should be removed.  Educate and enlighten people... and allow them to form their own view.  They are entitled to hear all perspectives. When in doubt, please feel free to contact me.

Crystal

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The part about us rephrasing Prozac questions was merely meant to give us an illusion of fairness; because in actually, it was never our job to alter any orthodox medical questions.  In fact, we got in trouble when we tried to do so, which we did to test our suspicions about WikiAnswers policies.

To really put things into perspective, Crystal thought open discussions about alternative medicine were inappropriate in the alternative medicine section, while she simultaneously defended the free speech rights of an 60-year-old man who was trying to connect with teenage girls, and who posted topics such as, "Tips for breaking a virgin".  WikiAnswers had to ethically defend free speech after all, so long as it doesn't threaten the doctor and pharmacist readers.  It was perfectly okay for WikiAnswers to promote chemotherapy in alternative medicine and to be a medium for sexual predators who snare naive teenagers.  They have "standards" to uphold.  Check out these screen shots to see it for yourself.

Screen Shot 1 -    Screen Shot 2 -     Screen Shot 3

Of course, there's much more, because we always cover ourselves legally before we go public.