On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:47 AM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:
On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:54 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 23/05/2011 13:35, Fred Bauder wrote:
This seems to combine malice and political purpose. Really it is stuff that belonged on Encyclopedia Dramatica.
I take it Fred means "this article" or "this campaign": if the latter that's obvious enough. Given a mainstream piece of coverage such as
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/17/please-do-not-google-the-name-of-this-u...
from a few days ago, I wonder if the article is really out of step.
Charles
There is a big difference between "This name-based neologism is offensive and derogatory" and "This name-based neologism is offensive and derogatory, but politicially and socially significant".
It's neither our doing or fault that the neologism has become significant in some areas of society and has had a noticeable and noticed effect on Santorum's potential future political career. Failing to cover it would be an error of judgement on our part, and quite frankly if we removed it we'd probably stir up enough negative controversy related to censorship that his name would be dragged through the mud worse than it already has been.
Santorum himself seems to have a decent level of understanding that the phenomena is out of his control and not something he should try to suppress, despite being personally offended.
We don't exist to fix the real world - we exist to report on it accurately. Many of the things we report on are unfortunate. An IMF candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid, a tornado that killed 89 plus people, a terrorist attack in Pakistan and several ongoing and incipient wars, these are other unfortunate things that make the neologism Santorum pale in comparison.
Well said. It's a dirty word, it's politically motivated, but it fits all valid criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia. The only reason to delete it is personal political or cultural bias.