On 24/12/2007, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Earlier, Oldak Quill wrote:
"[P]aedophiles are banned from editing
Wikipedia" is quite
meaningless. Surely something like "those advertising themselves as
paedophiles are banned from editing Wikipedia" is more actionable? We
can't ban thought, only action.
The implied semantics of "...who we haven't caught yet" applies to any
number of miscreant categories, from pedophiles (in thought or action)
to banned trolls.
We don't have to say so explicitly. Nobody's going to laugh at us
because we state something we can't strictly enforce without reading
minds. A policy which rather clearly says "no" in no uncertain terms
with no wiggle room is a lot easier to state and enforce than one
which acknowledges the grey area.
Introducing a ban on thought would be a new precedent for us (and
largely unenforceable) and it is frankly not our business. If we ban
paedophiles, it becomes our responsibility to ensure none of the
editors are paedophiles (an impossible). If we make it our
responsibility to ensure paedophiles do not edit, it will be our fault
if the media discovers that some of our editors are.
IMO, our policies should be limited to what we can control - no
paedophilia-related userboxes, advertising and that kind of thing.
Anything beyond that (policy governing the thought processes of our
editors) strikes me as a knee-jerk, emotive reaction (à la the tabloid
press).
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)