But what about the undiscerning, lost sheep who can't tell black from white and would walk off a cliff if you let them? What about those who just might find some inadvertent error, or some opinion by a rather non-Orthodox person? They might be corrupted! They might never find the faith!
Is this any different, I ask you, than walking into any Orthodox church and talking to the people there? We are, regrettably, sinful people who must rely upon God's providence and mercy to make up for our shortcomings. Any panic on the part of blind sheep not only betrays an opinion that is probably patronizing to those sheep. Is there anyone truly incapable of judgement or without friends that are incapable of judgement? Give them some respect.
Not only But, the argument goes, someone will eventually come along, make misplaced assumptions about this site, and be disillusioned by some bit of content thatmay not even be representative of most of the efforts of the wiki editors. Yes, but unfortunate incidents happen. Sometimes someone in a discussion hears wrong or misunderstands an argument. Sometimes a person catches an Orthodox person in a particularly bad mood and will latch on to imply whatever that Orthodox says even though there are other Orthodox standing around saying, "No, that 's not right." Can we, through extreme carefulness, or through security measures, keep everyone from misinformation? No. Is wiki more prone to misinformation than an authoritative/security model? No. The authority can be wrong, may have mistyped something, and may definitely be misheard, in which case there is even more possibility of the editing perception/assumption of authority leading to disillusionment. Editing within the OrthodoxWiki is also not likely to be "willy-nilly", when the reason for this issue in the first place is since the perceived importance and authority of such a site... that doesn't make senseadds to the gravity felt by, and the care taken by, the editor. I know, this is true for myself at least, I will feel the most gravity, the most carefulness, whenever editing these pages because I very well do know how it may be perceived. I may be wrong, and I don't want to put words in anyone's mouths, but I think that would go for most of us. Respectfully (I hope), give us some respect too, please.
-- Rdr. Patrick
