Re: Wikipedia & Tor

[Jimmy Wales <jwales@xxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Syverson wrote:
>>>No. Cf.
>>>http://tor.eff.org/faq-abuse.html#WhatAboutSpammers
>>
>>To be fair, this answer is yes. People have used Tor to deface Wikipedia
>>pages, along with Slashdot pages, certain IRC networks, and so on. I
>>think that counts as spam at least in a broad sense.

[...]

> But Gah, No! I think this is an awful meaning creep of `spam' that
> makes it harder to talk succinctly and clearly about the different
> types of abuse.  If I'm behind, and that's what `spam' means now. Oh
> well, another loss in the war for clarity. We'll just have to hack a
> new term ;>)

Yes, I agree that defacing Wikipedia is not spam in and of itself.  The
core meaning of the term has to be "unsolicited commercial messages in
an Internet medium" -- whether the transport mechanism is email, blog,
or wiki seems to me to be an inessential.

--Jimbo