Sam Korn wrote:
There's
something sad about a situation where PR becomes the driving
force behind what we do. It's equally disturbing when a bunch of
hypocrites loudly shout "IANAL", and then proceed in an attempt to
enforce the law that they don't know anything about.
The good of the project is the driving force. Of course PR has an effect.
This depends on what you define as contributing to "the good of the
project". I would define it as something like contributing to the
ability to write a high-quality Free encyclopedia. In that case, it's
unclear to what extent policing what sort of people contribute, and who
they may say they are, is a positive. It's conceivable that we could
lose some good contributors who refuse to contribute to a project that
has neo-Nazi contributors (or Satanist contributors, or Stalinist
contributors), but it's also conceivable that we could lose some good
contributors who refuse to contribute to a project that has that sort of
vetting (or even themselves run afoul of it).
My personal opinion, as is probably obvious, is that it does the project
no good to wade into the morrass of trying to determine which opinions
are "across the line" and which are "offensive to me personally but not
bannable".
-Mark