Instead, Lih got a 408-word lecture from Möller, who runs Wikipedia's technology and volunteer-editing operations (when he's not defending child pornography, that is), about how Lih should have read the manual. In the time he took to write that comment, couldn't he have called Lih and offered assistance?

He could have, but he wouldn't. Möller, a longtime Wikipedia editor before he became a staffer at the foundation, shows the Wikipedia culture Lih chronicles at its very worst: Insisting on process rather than solving problems, lecturing and hectoring online rather than reaching out. Möller isn't some aberration; he's entirely typical of the breed he now oversees. Wikipedia's readers may deserve better, but its editors surely don't.

With 600 conferencegoers, attendance is down, but not dramatically. It's not a boycott; it's a borecott. But 600 followers devoted enough to trek to Alexandria are more than enough to puff up Wales's ego. They think they're attending a conference; like the postadolescents ringing Wales at Foo Camp, they're really just playing his game.