I read John Miller’s piece in the current issue and I agree with him entirely on the merits about Wikipedia. But I’m not quite sure I’m with him on this passage:

The most egregious examples of vandalism tend to be corrected quickly by devoted Wikipedians. It’s like the “broken windows” theory of crime — if you keep replacing the shattered windows, eventually the vandals will quit tossing rocks at them.

I know what John’s getting at, but is that really the best one-sentence definition of the “broken windows theory of crime”? The salient point of BWT, I thought, was arresting and charging people for breaking the windows. Yes, the replacing of broken windows is an important part of it (like the daily cleaning of subway cars to show that graffiti wouldn’t last). But my guess is a lot of opponents of broken windows theory didn’t primarily object to the replacement of broken windows, as it were, but to the prosecution of the ruffians who broke them.

In the internet world, the supply of pests and trouble makers is bottomless and I’m not sure simply “fixing” their chicanery is a real deterrent. For example, I usually block hatemailers and other pests from sending me email. Simply deleting their email does nothing to deter them.