On 6/20/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
By discussing the *possibility* that it could ever exist on Wikipedia, we were giving the wrong impression about the purpose for which Wikipedia exists, and saying that we don't care about our core policies.
This is nonsense. One should be able to discuss anything on Wikipedia, even things which are plainly bad ideas. The idea that some things are "beyond discussion" is the sort of weak nonsense that people who don't or can't engage with others throw out as a justification for shutting down debate, which you seem to make a habit of.
Beyond that, discussing the possibility is a useful heuristic, as others have pointed out, for deciding exactly where to draw the line. If we all agree that a Conservative Noticeboard is a bad idea, do we necessarily think that a LGBT Noticeboard is a bad idea? What about a Political Noticeboard? What about an Evolution Noticeboard? Most of the "Restore" votes on the DRV were made not because they thought the board should exist, but because it was out-of-process and that full discussion had not taken place. Though if you think that "discussion" itself is a dangerous thing, I suppose you'd fine those invalid reasons. I think you have far too little faith in the Wikipedia Way and far too little appreciation for how to be involved in a large organization.
I think there's more evidence to support the idea that a few arrogant admins can do a lot more long term damage to Wikipedia's productivity than a few discussions.
I'm not a fan of "Wikilawyering", if that's the term we want to use for asking politely that others follow rules and guidelines developed by the community, even if it is not as expedient than just breaking them. But I do believe that communities function better when there are reliable rules, when actions do not appear arbitrary, and when it is clear that people are not being shut down simply because of their political opinions. In this case none of that is clear in the slightest.
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Something tangentially related to this thread. All the political USER categories are up for CFD since yesterday Originally it was only the conservative category that was up for CFD, and people complained about it being "unfair" to nominate only this one and were opposing in a "all or none way". Later, someoneelse decided to went ahead and nominate all political user categories. I think it' an important issue and that more people should join and drop comments, given ti's quite a big change (there are hundreds of user-categories dealing with political statements