On 2/17/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
If Wikipedia isn't mine, then who owns it? Who gets to decide whether
Wikipedia is, to the best of my knowledge, owned by the Wikimedia Foundation.
publishing "I am a fish" on your user page is allowed or not? Why
Jimbo. He delegates most decision making on that to the community, but definitely holds the final say.
doesn't my opinion carry as much weight as the next one? AFAIK there
Not if Jimbo is the next one :)
is no Wikipedia-rule against writing pedophile on your user page. I thought that was the whole reason for this email thread.
There isn't a rule against it, but it doesn't mean you have a right to either. Well, that's my interpretation.
Information has no moral value, it is neutral. It is the consumer of the information that may *choose* to being disrupted or offended. Each
Well that's one way of seeing it :)
and everyone is responsible for how he or she interprets the information and what "mood" that puts him or her in. Within reasonable limits of course - false information, hatespeech and goatse is not good and is not allowed on Wikipedia.
Sure, I can wander down the street waving a stick and anyone who "chooses" to get hit by it is responsible. Not a very useful model for building a community IMHO.
Most constitutions (the one in the US for example) explicitly guarantees every citizens right to free speech. Most countries also have laws that makes saying and publishing certain things illegal. In most countries with "free speech," you are allowed to put "almost any poster you want on your front door." Similarly, Wikipedia allows you to put almost any description of yourself you want on your user page.
I think you're mischaracterising free speech. You can say what you want on the inside of *your* front door. I'm fairly certain that if you wrote a detailed plan for assassinating the president on the outside of your front door, you would regret it once the police found out.
Quite the contrary, it is important to emphasize that there is no protection for offensiveness for anyone.
Not true. We have policies for civility and that includes not using offensive language, personal attacks etc. We don't guarantee anyone a swearword-free environment, but we do try and make it pleasant.
Steve