Chris seems to be really decent. even if he had a lapse in judgement, he embraces pleasant discussion. i'm embarrassed by the juvenille response: the meanness most of all, but also the unwillingness to see someone else's perspective or view efforts as a collaboration rather than a fight.
if a teammate messes up, you help them, you don't shoot them down.
If a teammate (WP editor) deliberately sabotages the team (by deleting useful information instead of creating it), what do you do then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christopher_Monsanto
Lesson not learned. He's still seeking self-justification for removing knowledge from the public sphere. It's almost 1984-esque.
When he said "fixing" I don't get the feeling _he_ thinks it's broken but rather is acknowledging other people's take (as evidence) and lead him to believe that there could be room for improvement.
To me this shows that he believes things are ok, but he would agree to any changes if the community thought changes were necessary. That's quite reasonable to me.
That's quite different from the allegation. (That he thought they were wrong but just followed the guidelines anyway. Or have I missed another quote where the allegation is true?
I think such people are indeed very necessary for the world to function (or we'd only have corruption and worse) and there's no reason to be annoyed about them.
Or to put it another way: Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
(But: Exceptions do apply.)
Football referees don't have the flexibility or responsibility to alter the rules of the game. They have one and only one duty: to make their calls in accordance with the rules of football as closely as they can.
Wikipedia does not operate under football rules. The fifth pillar of Wikipedia is "Wikipedia does not have firm rules." Editors should enforce the spirit of the rule, even if the letter says otherwise. This is the diametrical opposite approach of football. Someone with a "football referee" attitude is decidedly inappropriate for the role of Wikipedia editor.