On 4/17/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Draw the line where good judgement dictates that it should be drawn. Don't defend a policy on the basis that there exists no better policy that a robot could understand -- we are not robots. Wikipedia is not a platform for free speech, the lack of censorship does not mean we should publish everything that can possibly be published. We need to select our material based on more nuanced criteria.
I agree. Wikipedia is not a free-speech zone. It's a project to create an encyclopedia, one that needs a sense of responsibility commensurate with its popularity.
I agree entirely with this as a statement of principle.
Turning to the case at hand, I think that the article on methods should be merged into the main article on suicide. That way we can continue to present factual content in an informative manner. But we will also be able to present the information in context, in an article which already discusses reasons for suicide, the impact of suicide and a range of views on suicide. This is a responsible way to present this information.
I should say that there is substantial room for improvement in both articles.