Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> The legal concept of a "public forum" applies specifically to
>> government property. In particular, it covers property like public
>> streets, sidewalks, and parks that have traditionally been used for
>> civic assembly and discussion. Wikipedia as a website is operated by
>> a private nonprofit organization, and Wikipedia as a community is a
>> collection of private individuals. The public can participate, and
>> nearly all activity happens "in public", but none of that makes this
>> a public forum in a legal sense, because it's not owned by the public.
>
> That's an unduly narrow definition of "public forum" and appears
> contrary to the generally held impression of that term. Your
> particular definition should be backed up with a source.
I used a legal definition of public forum because Chris used the term in
his argument that US constitutional law guarantees a right to freedom of
speech on Wikipedia. That makes the legal definition the appropriate one
to use in considering whether Wikipedia is a public forum. If you would
like some references, I would recommend starting with Hague v. CIO, 307
U.S. 496 (1939), which is the seminal Supreme Court case dealing with
the concept of a public forum. There are also plenty of cases since then
about the extent to which speech in public fora can be restricted or
regulated, and this is the sense in which they generally use the term
"public forum".
> It is more common to think of that expression as a space (including a
> virtual one) where members of the general public can come to express
> their views, and hear the views of others.
I have no problem with saying that Wikipedia is a public forum in the
sense that it is a space that allows public expression. Definitions of
terms often vary with how they are used, and that definition would be
fine for general discourse. But when people use a term in a technical
setting, they have to be prepared to accept the technical definition
when it's a term of art in that particular field.
>> Just a general reminder: editing Wikipedia is a privilege, not a
>> right. The privilege is granted liberally, but it can be restricted
>> or taken away, though that will usually happen only in extreme
>> circumstances.
>
> We have all heard this stale distinction before in many different
> circumstances. It seldom rises above the status of word play, and
> does not assist us in finding a constructive solution. There likely
> would be broad general support for banning hate speech, and that's why
> your argument is useless. The problem is in defining what we mean.
I'm not sure what argument you think I was making. I was responding to
an argument that freedom of speech on Wikipedia is a legally protected
right. Hence much of my discussion focused on "rights" in the legal
sense. Just because I rejected this argument, it does not follow that I
am advocating any particular policy with respect to speech, or
hate-speech in particular. I don't doubt you've heard the cliché many
times, but not everyone has, and it bears repeating when people make
claims that they have a "legal right" to do anything here.
As for finding a constructive solution to the problem of hate-speech, I
think it *is* helpful to rebut erroneous arguments that such speech is
legally protected. I agree with you that we also need an adequate
definition in order to have any kind of workable policy.
--Michael Snow
Dan Drake wrote,
> Well, I wasn't trying to start a discussion of what Americans
> are really
> like; quite the reverse. But I think both of these positions
> are largely
> right, as was the one I expressed before. Here's the
> amazing, unheard-of
> secret: not all Americans think alike all the time. That was
> the point of my post.
>
> Still, consider this: a person may believe that his country
> does something better than most of the world does (to be
> concrete, let's take the matter
> of having an independent judiciary that is largely in the
> hands of people
> who understand the concept of due process of law and even
> approve of it),
> and he may even be right; but when he comes face to face with
> the places
> that really are worse, the reality may be shocking. Thus I
> reconcile the
> two positions.
Dan, would you please weave this insight into a Wikipedia article about
America or Americans? Or start a new article called [[American concepts
of justice]]? Or maybe put this into [[independent judiciary]], as part
of a series on [[American government]]?
I think it's important for the Wikipedia articles to reflect that fact
that many Americans take just the attitude you described above:
that America "does something better than most of the world does" by
"having an independent judiciary that is largely in the hands of
people
who understand the concept of due process of law and even approve of
it"
Ed Poor
Christopher Mahan wrote:
>--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste(a)ohiou.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>The ACLU opposes hate speech legislation on two grounds: first, it
>>considers hate speech one of the prices a society must pay for a
>>general right to freedom of speech, and second, it believes the best
>>response to hate speech is more speech. I happen to sympathize very strongly, or just plain agree, with both of these. I do not think the state should limit free speech. WHEELER, for example, has a right to say whatever anti-Semitic thing he wants to, to anyone who wants to listen.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>The question is, do I have to listen? Do you, do we have to
>>listen? And, more importantly, does Wikipedia have to be a medium through which anyone spews hate speech? I don't think so.
>>
>>
>Incorrect. The Supreme Court has ruled (lawyers can dig the ref out)
>that restricting venue of speech is an infringement on the exercise
>of free speech. As long as a forum is public, they are allowed to
>speak.
>
Chris made a passing argument earlier that Wikipedia is legally a public
forum and therefore required to allow freedom of speech under the First
Amendment. Since he repeats the argument here, I felt a rebuttal was
necessary. Apologies in advance for focusing on US law and disregarding
relevant laws elsewhere.
The legal concept of a "public forum" applies specifically to government
property. In particular, it covers property like public streets,
sidewalks, and parks that have traditionally been used for civic
assembly and discussion. Wikipedia as a website is operated by a private
nonprofit organization, and Wikipedia as a community is a collection of
private individuals. The public can participate, and nearly all activity
happens "in public", but none of that makes this a public forum in a
legal sense, because it's not owned by the public.
The law in some states, notably California, protects a certain amount of
free speech on some private property, specifically the ability to
petition or solicit individuals in shopping centers that are open to the
general public. Maybe this is what gave Chris the idea that Wikipedia is
a public forum. But even if this principle applied to speech on
Wikipedia, I highly doubt it would cover anything resembling hate-speech.
Wikipedia currently is somewhat of a forum for speech, but it's not
legally obligated to provide a forum, or to remain open to the public,
or to permit unrestricted free speech. The website could shut down
tomorrow, or convert to read-only, thus stopping all speech. To the
extent that anyone has a "right to free speech" here, it consists of the
rights licensed to everyone under the GFDL, in conjunction with the
ability to fork the content.
>>For example, people have a right to advertise but we do not allow advertisements on Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>Actually they do. Others have a right to remove such advertising.
>They do not have a right to prohibit others from removing the
>advertising.
>
Please do not confuse having the ability to do something on Wikipedia
with having the right to do it. Wikipedia has every right to prohibit
advertising, or removal of advertising, depending on what policy the
Wikipedia community wants to follow with respect to advertising. Same
goes for hate-speech. The question is about what policy we want, and how
to define it.
Just a general reminder: editing Wikipedia is a privilege, not a right.
The privilege is granted liberally, but it can be restricted or taken
away, though that will usually happen only in extreme circumstances.
--Michael Snow
Just as a change of topic(s): does anyone have some figure on the growth of
Internet, or WWW, traffic, say from the start of 2004? I ask this out of
interest in the interpretation of WP's position in ranking (Alexa). This is
no longer consistently rising; but I notice that many of the comparison
sites are actually in decline, compared with start 2004.
This would make some sense, given the continuing heavy load on WP's
servers, if WP is attracting some constant proportion of a growing 'cake'
(traffic total); while other sites have constant traffic but therefore a
lower share. So I would find it of interest if this could be confirmed
Charles
Hello everyone,
About hate speech, I don't think Wikipedia needs any
specific policy about it. We really need two things:
(1) the ability to -effectively- ban trolls, and
(2) the will to use the ability.
I think (1) is more important right now. Blocking and banning
are easy to work around, since one need simply make a sock
puppet or edit without logging in. Item (2) is simply irrelevant
until WP can strongly enforce bans and blocks.
I really have no idea how to implement (1). I hope someone's
working on it. I'd be interested to hear out any proposals.
About (2): We don't need a hate speech policy, because we
should simply ban time wasting morons on sight. It doesn't
take months of agonizing to figure out who's a troll.
We should empower trustworthy people to ban trolls, and
then let them. This probably implies increasing the ranks of
the arbitration committee to, say, several hundred.
I don't recommend making rules about who's a troll.
Trolls love rules, as others have noted. I'd rather just
have a vote among enough (say a few dozen) of
the arbitrators. We don't have rules about what's a
keepable article, we vote on them. I don't see any
reason that voting can't work against trolls.
Frankly, I'm puzzled that WP is so tolerant of trolling.
I believe trolls are the biggest threat to WP, by far.
There are not very many, but they eat up time and resources
far out of proportion to their numbers. Worst of all, they
drive away real editors. We tolerate this at our own risk.
For what it's worth,
Robert Dodier
(Wile E. Heresiarch)
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Hello everyone!
It turns out that VfD is used as a general forum to
determine what to do with an article. Deletion is an
option but redirect, cleanup, & copyvio are used as well.
So I suggest renaming "Votes for deletion" to "Triage".
The VfD header message can be changed accordingly --
"This article has been listed on Wikipedia:Triage
because someone decided it would be a good idea to
get some more eyeballs on it."
I'm thinking such a message is more accurate, and
also gentler on new contributors, whose articles
end up on VfD out of proportion to their numbers.
Maybe "Triage" isn't the best name since it
suggests trauma. Any other ideas?
For what it's worth,
Robert Dodier
(Wile E. Heresiarch)
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Angela wrote:
> VfD should not be used as a general forum to determine what to do
with
> an article. VfD is for pages that should be deleted. If it needs
> redirecting or whatever, list it on Cleanup, discuss it on the talk
> page, or just take the action required. If it's a copyvio, list it on
> [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems]]. Misuse of VfD is a reason to change
> the way people use it, not a reason to rename it.
Part of the point is that VfD has evolved into a forum for
general purpose review of an article. I really don't see
anything wrong with that. We could create a new page called
"General review" and then nag people not to use VfD for that,
but it's much simpler, and achieves the same purpose, to
simply rename VfD.
VfD became what it is today because it fills a need. When VfD
was created, the need wasn't foreseen.
Robert Dodier
(Wile E. Heresiarch)
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Not only does this page contain false accusations; not only does it represent an abuse of Tim Starling's administrative powers; but, it can be used to find out the passwords of various users. It should be deleted and Tim Starling and should be demoted.
>> NPOV never covered false statements such as Wheeler
>> made about the Jewish concentration camps of the Gulag.
>> If you think it did you were mistaken. Such a statement
>> would be acceptable only in the context of identifying
>> it as an anti-semitic statement.
> I wouldn't have thought so. I'd like to hear RK's
> opinion on the topic in general before feeling my
> qualms are addressed. He already considers page
> protection evidence of anti-Semitism.
Who in the blazes told you that?! I've got news for you:
Pages are protected on Wikipedia all the time. I never
called suchprotection racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic,
anti-American, or anything else. What you have beem told
about me has been exagerrated to the point of caricature.
Why? Because some people want to avoid the issue on the
rare articles (out of over 100,000) when they do arise.
If some people added anti-American propaganda and rhetoric
to an article, and then protected the page, then that
specific set of actions would be anti-American agitation,
and it should be condemned as such. Similarly, if some
people added anti-Jewish or anti-gay propaganda and
rhetoric, and then protected the page, then that specific
set of actions would be anti-Semitic or homophobic
agitation, and it should be condemned as such. Note that
this line of thought has been echoed by others (not just
me) and that it bears no resemblance to what you think I
believe.
By the way, I have over 300 articles on my "Watchlist", and
I have seen many of these articles get protected. I also
have seen some rather large flame wars on many of them,
most of which I have chosen to ignore. In recent months,
how many of times did I see someone do something
anti-Jewish within an article? One article...out of *three
hundred*. (Wheeler's attacks were in a Talk page.)
Heck, although I look at many of these 300 "Watch"
articles, I just took a couple of months off from Wikipedia
because (a) I had time-consuimg outside concerns (good
things, mostly) and (b) I didn't have the energy or desire
to get involved in flame wars. Wikipedia could probably
cool down a bit if others took off for a week or a month
every now and then. I've done it before, I'll do it again;
I can even reccomend it. Heck, people who can't take time
off are too tightly wound up in this project (like...Mr
Natural Health.)
Robert
=====
"No one is poor except he who lacks knowledge....A person who has knowledge has everything. A person who lacks knowledge, what has he? Once a person acquires knowledge, what does he lack? [Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim, 41a]
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