On Dec 26, 2007 9:03 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
The question here is "time, place, and
manner" restrictions. If you
want to advocate for racism (for example), you are certainly welcome to
do so: just not here, not at Wikipedia.
The question is really what we intend when
we use the term "Wikipedia"
in this kind of thread. If you use the term in its narrowest sense as
what the passive information-seeking public sees you are closer to being
right. For most people who have been active contributors it is much
more than that. For them "Wikipedia" includes all the various
namespaces where difficult problems are hammered out. Some might even
see the mailing lists and IRC as a part of the greater Wikipedia. Free
speech is essential to hammering out the problems, and it follows from
this that without free speech NPOV is unattainable.
Maybe this is what you mean by "time, place and manner", but that's not
what's coming across. What's being communicated is a highly restrictive
environment where there is no place provided in which to express a
different opinion, or at least not one that is contrary to received
wisdom. Advocacy, like advertising goes beyond free speech We have a
history of dislike for advertising even for the most benign of
products. Repeated claims on behalf of these products by the same
person will stand him in no better stead than if he was promoting racism.
Remember too that most of us who take a more liberal view on dealing
with these explosively controversial subject would still not dream of
doing so in an article. Sometimes it pays to give people credit for a
little more sophistication than a simplistic black-and-white duality
between Wikipedia and free speech.
Ec
For me the great paradox of wikipedia is that none of us really know
*how* it fundamentally solves things, but in practise *it does*.
This reminds me both of the "flight of the bumblebee", and of
Winston Churchills quip on the Americans that they can be trusted
to do the right thing "after having tried every other way".
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]