Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 2/24/06, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org>
wrote:
The more specific issue facing us is: To what
extent ought we to censor
Wikipedia out of concern for human dignity?
Quite a lot, I should hope.
We're in the business of education, not titillation. We should feel
comfortable in drawing the line pretty sharply on the side of
education. If a private individual, which this man certainly is,
suffers indignity because of our actions, then we should definitely
spend some time reconsidering our actions.
A year seems about right. if the article really is so necessary to
Wikipedia that we should disregard or set aside such concerns. Or
five years. Let's not rush in making such a difficult and possibly
very damaging decision.
God, I have so damn had it with all this Brian Peppers crap flooding the
list. Since it's aggravating me to no end (and the masochist that I am,
I can't pull away from my mail client), I think I'll chip in: Wikipedia
covers a lot of private individuals who don't want to be covered and
feel their dignity is being violated. Remember [[Gary Brolsma]]? The
[[Star Wars Kid]]? Or even the recent case of that deceased German
hacker whose parents got a court order banning the German Wikipedia from
publishing his name? With the internet, a lot of people are getting
their fifteen minutes of fame -- and in some cases, a lot more than
that. I'm not about to embroil myself in the dispute over whether
Peppers is sufficiently notable for inclusion, but I find the excuse
used by some that "being funny-looking does not make one notable" is
missing the point -- being made fun of by some of the most popular
websites on the internet and getting media coverage for this *can* be
considered notability.
Having said that, I don't care whether [[Brian Peppers]] stays or goes,
although as one might be able to tell, I'm leaning in favour of keeping.
But it makes no real difference to me. Keep or delete him, whatever --
just don't use logical fallacies or faulty reasoning to support your
decision.
John