On May 23, 2006, at 1:27 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
But wouldn't you say their espousing of these views creates a hostile environment towards the ethnic groups they're intolerant of?
If that's the case, then they should be asked to stop it, and perhaps forced to do so. But you're stretching if you want to suggest that the presence of a white supremacist *by itself* creates a hostile environment for any black editors.
Not all. If we had racist editors but they provided no evidence that they were racist, things would be fine. (Given the vast number of editors on Wikipedia, I have to surmise that the vast majority of the racist editors we do have fall within this category--we don't know who they are and that makes things fine.)
The debacle caused by the admin who threatened to ban any user of {{user pedophile}} demonstrated that banning for ideology or membership is not practical or desirable. Incivil actions or undesirable edits, yes. But not memberships or ideologies.
That's a good point. Then again, had Saladin1970 not made his attitude toward the Jews clear in his edits, I would have no problem with him. We really don't disagree on this point--it's the expression of anti-Semitism that bothers me, not what he privately chooses to believe.