Stevertigo wrote:
Is this "soft security" or "containment by appeasement" . Not that I disagree --rather for sake of conversation, I'll go along with your point, Toby -- I do think there is real philosphical issue here that should be hammered out. Can we realistically take hard stands? Can we realistically set community standards? Im personally not offended by it (IANG) but we do seem to be appeasing POV and stereotype rather than find a way to frame it or barring that flushing it. People had the same kind of antipathy towards the AKFD article-- and Ive always thought its because theres a misunderstanding of NPOV or trolling.
The only misunderstanding of NPOV is by people trying to change the name (some of them, that is, not all). Nobody claims that the name is NPOV. But we allow plenty of POV on Wikipedia -- on talk pages, on user pages, on [[meta:]] and in the [[Wikipedia:]] namespace when signed, and even in article pages when attributed to relevant authorities. We also allow it on [[Special:Recentchanges]] in edit summaries. If we're not going to allow it on [[Special:Recentchanges]] in usernames, then this is a new idea, not some well-known and obvious fact. (We also allow POV on [[meta:]] and in the [[Wikipedia:]] namespace when unsigned -- that is in the policies and guidelines of the project -- but limited to opinions about the project itself, which must be positive.)
This is all quite reasonable -- Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation take no opinion on the various controversies that may arise, but individual Wikipedians do have opinions, and nobody denies this. And Wikipedia even keeps its own good opinion of itself outside of the encyclopaedia proper (thus [[Wikipedia]] is NPOV, even though [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia]] is not).
This doesn't impinge on the question of whether [[User:Jesus is Lord!]] causes /offence/ -- that is another matter, and it does seem to do so, even if only to "1.5 people", in Ed's words. But /if/ JiL is a troll and intended to cause offence, then reacting as if we are offended (whether or not we are!) is, precisely, feeding the troll. That's why I'm trying to talk to JiL as if he's not a troll, to convince him that it is a good thing to change his name to something along the lines of [[User:Subject of Lord Jesus]]. This is the right thing to do regardless of his true intentions.
And this is not to say that users should be deliberately inflammatory. If that's JiL intention, then this person should be ashamed -- obviously. But users do have opinions, and I for one am grateful when a user states their biases up front so that I can watch out if necessary. If /this/ was JiL's intention, then it is to be lauded, even the means chosen to do so were not ideal.
-- Toby