Steve Bennett wrote: It will help me get on with my life... or be bored out of my mind. I disagree with the idea that there is a problem with saying one is a pedophile on one's user page.

On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0(a)gmail.com> wrote: No-one has said that. Don't twist people's words. No-one is being banned just for being a paedophile. -- Sam

Sam Korn wrote: People are however not allowed to say that they are pedophiles on their userpage, and presumably there is a ban to go with it if the Arbcom is not just wanking.

"Jay Converse" wrote See for example [[argument from setting a precedent]]. people because they might edit gay articles to be pro-gay even with no established history of even editing those articles, all they have to do is point to "Well, we banned pedophiles for having an inborn POV too, didn't we?" and then Process(tm)(r) will dictate that since it happened before, we should let it happen again. See for example the actual charter wording, as being quoted in one of the decisions. It is in any case 100% obvious that gay people are not going to be banned. Charles

On 2/8/06, SPUI <drspui(a)gmail.com> wrote: Pray, how does saying "look at me, I'm a paedophile, look at my pretty box" help us to build an encyclopaedia? -- Sam

Sam Korn wrote: How does arguing with me help us to build an encyclopedia? Cease now or you will be banned. You are asking the wrong question. The real question is whether such a thing HURTS the encyclopedia. And the answer is a resounding no. It may make some anal-retentive conservatives avoid Wikipedia, but that shouldn't be a problem. We don't need to be seen as good by the press. We just need to produce a good product in the article space. And, pray tell, how did Jimbo's knee-jerk ban of Joeyramoney help us build an encyclopedia?

On 2/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: I thought that's what started this whole mess. --

Oh, an editor can BE a paedophile. We don't mind that. It's just that he or she can't SAY it on their userpage. That pisses everyone off and attracts criticism. Pete, pointing out the bizarre but crucial details

On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0(a)gmail.com> wrote: If the userpages are potentially damaging to Wikipedia's reputation (and this certainly is), and add nothing to the project, yes, fine, remove the information. I'd go as far as saying that all content saying that someone breaks US law should be forbidden as well. -- Sam

On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes. It's a line. It's arbitrary. It's needed. -- Sam

On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0(a)gmail.com> wrote: You don't have a userpage in order to exercise any "right" to free speech, but because it helps the project; it aids communication and makes people happy. You never did have the right to say anything you pleased there; disruptiveness has always been unacceptable. There's nothing particularly new about that proposed finding. -Matt

Sam Korn wrote: {{userbox|id=illegal activities|info=[[jaywalking|OMG! This user crosses the street on a "don't walk" signal.]]}}

On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote: To be honest, I wasn't thinking of paedophilia here. -- Sam

On 2/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Given that most of our users and most significant press coverage is American, yes. That is why I drew the line there. Yes, I know it isn't perfect. But it's better than anything else I've seen. -- Sam

The line is arbitrary. But it makes more sense than "imposing" Danish or Chinese or Neopolitan or Thai upon all Wikipedia, given that WP is located in the US and most editors are US. Pete, Hungary

On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote: Have you considered it may be possible for the ArbCom to bring disrepute on Wikipedia through bad decisions? nobs

The example of the US President is before us. It pains me to see a great liberal democracy being vilified around the world, but there it is. If the people elect the government, then the people shouldn't complain too loudly about the consequences of their actions. Bide their time and wait for the next chance. I think the ArbCom gets things wrong pretty often, actually. But in hindsight, I can't say I blame them - the job involves a lot of stress and time, especially when it is unpaid. What would you have to replace the current management structure? Peter, seriously

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 SPUI stated for the record: I predict that you will succeed very quickly. - -- Sean Barrett | Those who cannot remember the past are sean(a)epoptic.org | condemned to learn it from Oliver Stone movies.

IOW, disruption and offence. We should browbeat and harass people rather than physically smack them over the head? If we let the community decide what is best for it, so long as the ultimate goal of writing an encyclopaedia remains foremost, then surely we will find the common good? Wikipedia is not an iron-fisted dictatorship under the heavy hand of Jimbo, nor is it a theocracy under the all-seeing gaze of the ArbCom. Usually the community sorts things out at street corner level and it is only the problem cases that come to the attention of admins, the ArbCom and as a last resort, Jimbo. Personally, I'd prefer to see a lot more common sense and a lot fewer rules, but I suspect that common sense doesn't scale, judging by the way things are going here. Pete, commoner

On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote: That's very much in dispute right now. Federal law says that smoking weed is always illegal, while some state laws sat that there are times when it's legal. Court decisions have gone both directions, and some police departments have stated that they will not enforce the federal law on the subject. -- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]

On 2/8/06, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com> wrote: I was thinking more along the lines of being sued because we "facilitated" drug users in some way, not because they said they smoked weed. -- Jay Converse I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.

Jay Converse wrote: If you follow the same argument it would be wrong to facilitate pedophilia, but one could still say that he is a pedophile. The reasons for doing something should go beyond fear of punishment or of being sued. Being consistent with one's own personal ethical standards is far more important. Ec

To even consider that the guidelines are draconian also implies that they have been tried before. The question is that do such ideas work. The reply obviously is not everybody agrees that they work, and they don't want to go backwards repeat history. We need new ideas and new systems developed to handle information without censorship and to put a definite bounds on "disreputable," as it (by past experience) may deemed to mean one thing or another thing from time to time. It is a decision by ArbCom, but it is not stable in implementation. Steve Bennett wrote:

On 2/8/06, SPUI <drspui(a)gmail.com> wrote: Well obviously they are. On the evidence page for the userbox page, someone cites examples of several people who do precisely that, and have absolutely clean block logs. Nobody is hunting down these people and preventing them from editing Wikipedia. You were blocked, not for being a pedophile, but for trolling.

On Feb 9, 2006, at 5:21 PM, Justin Cormack wrote: Is IAR an admissible defense in court? :) -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On 2/10/06, Justin Cormack <justin(a)specialbusservice.com> wrote: Obviously there are times when this is not applicable. But, in the majority of cases, it is not useful to Wikipedia for users to proclaim that they break the law. It's a public relations exercise, not a legal necessity. And to say that you are in prison is quite different from saying "I break the law regularly". -- Sam

Matt Brown wrote: Also very well put. We've always been quite relaxed about such thing, even to the point of putting up with blatant trolling from people like SPUI because he's so sweet and cuddley. ;-) But Wikipedia is not a free homepage provider. There's no simple formula that can tell us where to draw the line on various things, but we have looooong experience now to show that good people can agree to disagree and will, quite naturally, adjust their behavior for the good of the project and for the desire of harmonious relations with others. Irritating people like to be as obnoxious as possible to prove various dubious points about free speech and having a tolerant culture. Sometimes they'll cross the line, and sometimes they won't. The rest of us can try to be kind to them and hope they get bored with it as much as possible. The _last_ thing we need is a detailed legal formalism within the project about what is acceptable. I just ask people to, you know, knock it off and try (a) not to annoy people and (b) not to be too annnoyed by others. We have important work to do. :) -- ####################################################################### # Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge # # http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world # #######################################################################

Perhaps it should be noted that some admins force certain editors to become "trolls" through provoking, but it seems that no-one cares about the provoking part -- only about the other end that violates the policy of this-and-that. Many people, for instance, feel offended when they are being warned in public, on their talkpage. Most people, I believe, don't like to be given ultimatums. In my opinion, we should try to protect the integrity of the Wikipedian and have them warned in private. I also disagree with the block images that are added on talk- and user pages. Further more, as I said above, I don't think that it's good to have admins that provoke editors only so that they can block them. And yes, there are such admins. Unfortunatelly, it seems that the people with authority (stewards and above) are most impressed by the work of the admins, instead of those who just want to edit articles. Anittas --- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote: ####################################################################### ####################################################################### __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

Jimmy Wales wrote: Apologies for bluntness, but I think it is sophistry to explain why admins who followed process and precedent were 'punished' while those who did not weren't. That being said. We have now established new standards. It is decreed by both yourself and the ArbCom that userpage statements similar to 'This user is a pedophile' bring the project into disrepute and editors who harm the project in this way have no right to contribute. Since this has not been the case to date quite a number of such 'verbotten' comments and users have accumulated and must now apparently be be purged. Has any thought been given to how this pogrom should be accomplished? As I understand it the following statements (going back months and even years) are now expressly forbidden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zanthalon "Many of you have commented that the majority of my edits are on pedophilia-related articles. This is an area of interest for me since I am myself a pedophile, a girllover to be specific." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:LuxOfTKGL "Lux is male, and is a girl orientated, non-exclusive pedophile. This means that he is attracted (both sexually and otherwise) to both adult and non-adult females. His primary attraction is pre-pubescent females." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Silent_War "And, as any who know me by this alias know, I am a pedophile, mainly a girllover." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rookiee "I'm an activist in the Childlove Community. I am a pedosexual and boylover. I host a podcast titled Pedologues which aims to objectively look at the issue of multi-generational relationships and how it relates to child sexuality, western society and law. I'm a self-admitted pedant." No doubt there are others. Also, have any other 'categories of disrepute' been established? Should self-described NAZIs, rapists, and/or Menudo fans be similarly excised from the community?

Are you thinking of [[Wikipedia:No binding decisions]]? Steve On 2/11/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

"Steve Bennett" wrote No. Charles

charles matthews wrote: <sigh> But Charles, that clearly isn't the principle on which 'penalties' were based. If it were then why did David Gerard receive no penalty? Physchim62? Doc glasgow? MarkSweep? David Gerard has stated that he did not know that there was already a wheel war going on when he first deleted the template... he saw it and nuked immediately without checking. He also described both the template creator and the person using it as 'vile trolls'... and the people discussing the matter on WP:AN as 'a consensus of the stupid' (paraphrasing in both cases, but accurate) - he has since, laudably, acknowledged that he was surprised to find that they WEREN'T actually trolls and that he (and many of us) could have been more diplomatic. How does all that square with the need for "great caution" which ostensibly got the others into trouble? El C was clearly not particularly 'cautious' in making nasty comments to Carnildo and retributively blocking him, but received only a "reprimand". Et cetera. The fact that every admin who was on 'Jimbo's side' was given a pass (except for El C's 'reprimand') seemed to suggest THAT as the dividing line rather than 'caution'. Yet, of those receiving penalties, only Karmafist took action after Jimbo had stepped in. Hence my statement that most were judged against a standard that did not exist at the time they took their actions. To me the 'cautious' approach would be to follow procedure... NOT indefinitely blocking someone for things not covered under blocking policy and which a strong consensus (whether 'of the stupid' or no) opposed / NOT deleting templates out of process while a vote is going on and no applicable 'speedy' criteria exists (again, T1 was created after the fact). THAT'S cautious. Stopping to discuss and follow process. Mocking such as 'wiki-lawyering' seems to reduce "caution" to 'correctly guessing how the powers that be will rule on the situation'... with none of those nasty 'hand tying' precedents to serve as guides for such a guess. :]

Jimmy Wales wrote: Hello Jimmy. Thanks for fueling the recent moral panic that convinced me to stop contributing.

SPUI wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:SPUI&oldid=38917332 Good riddance. -- ####################################################################### # Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge # # http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world # #######################################################################

Tony Sidaway wrote: I was having some fun in my userspace. You decided to react badly to it.

On Feb 11, 2006, at 7:31 PM, SPUI wrote: Dammit, Jimbo, why didn't you make your stance clear a year ago? -Phil

Snowspinner wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Kelly_Mart… Hello, lynch mob.

charles matthews wrote: Oh, I think I can see why, but yes... that'd be the end of the conversation.

"Conrad Dunkerson" wrote Just for everyone else, then. There is no 'moral equivalence' about it. This has been about content and form, and those puzzled presumably thought that sticking to 'form', and disregarding what was really happening, was somehow OK. The ArbCom is as sane as ever, and has a perfectly good mandate to act here. Charles

Tony Sidaway wrote: Your 'common sense' contradicts my observed reality... both before and after the event. It is 'common sense' that we indefinitely block people for saying they are pedophiles? It is 'common sense' that any such statements are forcibly removed? So... why does this 'common sense' apply to one incident and one incident only - while not applying to virtually identical cases which have existed for years and, indeed, continue to exist? Suddenly, out of nowhere, this became 'common sense'... despite being contradictory to all process and precedent. People were punished for failing to perceive this 'common sense'... but now, just as swiftly as it came, the 'common sense' has vanished and we've still got people who opnely declare themselves pedophiles and nobody says 'boo' about it. Forgive me for my foolishness, but I do not understand your 'common sense'. Stop and consider how it looks from the outside. It looks like a rule was made up on the spot to justify one side of a wheel war and punish the other... and yes, that appearance IS destructive. As evidenced by the people who left (Radiant) or became hostile (SPUI). The benefit of being 'process-bound and wrapped up in groupthink' is that it does not be' are imbued with some higher perception of 'common sense' than the community in general... by definition it is NEVER going to appear that way to the majority who do not share this special wisdom.

"Conrad Dunkerson" wrote You know this is about a wheel-war, not that. Form and content. Some idiot creates a userbox, and because of the 'sacred' quality of the userbox form, some other idiots rush to undelete it. As has been frequently been pointed out, the _content_ hasn't been policed in the way you suggest. It is a complete violation of common sense to wheel-war about this, rather than discuss matters. Dragging red herrings across the issue helps not at all. Charles

On 2/12/06, Jimmy Wales &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; wrote: You know, someone else's antagonism doesn't give you the right to act like a jerk. Especially when you hold all the cards. But it does make you want to tear your hair out trying to be a nice guy all the time, doesn't it?

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006, Ray Saintonge wrote: You're not the only one who thinks this way, Ray. To mention a related strategy, I wonder just how many veteran contributors have adopted the following tactic for prevailing in a content conflict: 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many other articles in need of attention. 2. Wait x number of weeks. 3. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later contributions intact. 4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed. Not to argue that this is the best way to deal with unreasonable partisans, but I can't be the only one who has done this. Geoff

On 2/12/06, Steve Bennett &lt;stevage(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: oh it's nicer than: 1.Figure out your opponent's sleeping patturns 2.keep triggering edit wars with them just before they would otherwise log off for the night. -- geni

Steve Bennett" wrote frustrating, and boils down to some kind of siege warfare. Best to find a different article. It often is better to move off, than to edit when a page is crowded or an edit war is causing over-reaction. But long-termism about WP articles is hardly an evil-minded strategy. You know, using the watchlist, adding quotes when they come up in other reading, filling in red links instead of squabbling about prominence and ordering in the main article, all that good stuff. Charles

On 2/12/06, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Best one I've seen is: 1) Talk to a fellow admin about it on IRC. 2) Revert. 3) Have the fellow admin protect. Happened quite often before the introduction of three revert rule enforcement. Now colluding pairs can simply team up directly. Anthony

On 2/13/06, Geoff Burling &lt;lywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com&gt; wrote: Sure. Who needs sleep anyway? -- geni

I fail to see the similarity. Someone shouting "Fire!" in a crowded cinema is likely to cause lots of panic and angst as hundreds of movie goers all try to reach the fire exists. In the rush some might be injured or even die due to suffocation or being trampled to death. Peoples valuables might be looted and for sure, they will all have their movie experience destroyed. I still fail to see how writing pedophile on your user page has anything in common with shouting "Fire!" in a crowded cinema. What you are saying is that the word pedophile causes disruption and offence. If that is true then this email thread must have almost disrupted Wikipedia to death since it contains so many instances of pedophile. I'd say that words by themselves neither cause disruption nor offence. It is people that willfully participates in the act of being offended or disrupted. You can't remove your responsibility for your own thoughts and place it on some word. Where I live, any of the following posters would "provoke righteous outrage from a fairly large proportion of the community: "I'm a pedophile", "I'm a Nazi", "I'm a socialist", "I'm a racist", "I'm a communist", "I'm a Jew", "I'm a Muslim", "I'm a American", "I'm a gay", "I'm hating you", "I'm liking your daughter", "I'm doing it with your mum", "I'm better than you".... etc.. etc... etc... But the awesome thing is that, despite the "righteous outrage" any of those posters up my front door would "provoke," I'm still 100% free to put them there. The law protects my right to put almost any poster I want on my front door. Wikipedia works like that too. You might say that the right to call yourself whatever you want is not necessary for building an encyclopedia. I think you are wrong because an atmosphere of free speech is necessary when trying to collect and organise all the available information in the world. I agree. But I don't agree that the location of that line should be more limiting than what US law permits. -- mvh Björn

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:20:28 +0100, you wrote: I'd say the weeks of debate provoked by doing that has shown beyond doubt that it is every bit as disruptive, but what do I know? Guy -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk "To every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

If Wikipedia isn't mine, then who owns it? Who gets to decide whether publishing "I am a fish" on your user page is allowed or not? Why doesn't my opinion carry as much weight as the next one? AFAIK there is no Wikipedia-rule against writing pedophile on your user page. I thought that was the whole reason for this email thread. Information has no moral value, it is neutral. It is the consumer of the information that may *choose* to being disrupted or offended. Each 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. No it isn't. Every Wikipedian is responsible for what he or she writes on his or her user page. He or she is not responsible for how offended readers of his or her user page *choose* to become. I did not write that. I wrote that such a poster would "provoke righteous outrage from a fairly large proportion of the community." Muslim, just like all the other epithets I listed, is information and carries no moral value. 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. Quite the contrary, it is important to emphasize that there is no protection for offensiveness for anyone. -- mvh Björn

It has been shown beyond doubt that many people like to argue about meaningless things on the Internet. But that's not news. And I really don't think you or anyone else can blame the Wikipedia-pedophile for us wasting time, can you? -- mvh Björn

On 2/17/06, jayjg &lt;jayjg99(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: "American" and "Muslim" are epithets along the lines of "Nazi" and "paedophile"? As Steve Bennett said, eep. -- Sam

On 2/17/06, Steve Bennett &lt;stevage(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I agree. But the Wikimedia Foundation only owns Wikipedia in one of thre three following facets of Wikipedia: 1. Wikipedia, the worlds biggest collection of organised information. 2. Wikipedia, the great community who have created #1. 3. Wikipedia, the trademark and the servers used to run #1. You argued that since I am not a member of the Wikimedia Foundation I don't have the write to write "I'm a fish" on my user page, if I recall. Also, to the best of my knowledge the Wikimedia Foundation has not banned writing "I'm a fish" on my user page. And since you are not, AFAIK, a part of the Wikimedia Foundation you really can not ban writing "I'm a fish" on my user page. Do you understand? The question of ownership is utterly irrelevant to this discussion. Neither you nor I are owners, therefore please do not try to make it sound like your opinion is the Wikimedia Foundation's one. IANAL: In conventional IRL law you usually do not talk about rights. You have crime and consequence. If you do X you will receive Y. If you murder someone you will get between 4-20 years in prison. If you drive to fast you will get a fine. You have the right to do anything that doesn't have a consequence. Actually, you can do whatever you want but if you are caught you'll suffer the consequences. Wikipedia rules and policies works similarilly. It doesn't state what rights users have. It states what we will do to users that commit actions that has consequences. Your talk about right is irrelevant. The question is whether writing pedophile on your user page has a consequence or not. If you ever take the time to go through the archives for wikien-l you will find hundreds of threads where people have tried to objectively assign an offensive value to some item. Is an image of clitoris offensive? Is an image of autofellatio offensive? Is a swastika offensive? Are the Muhammed cartoons offensive? All attempts to measure offensiveness has failed. What is extremely offensive to someone isn't offensive at all to someone else. It is very hard to see above ones own cultural values, but if you do you will see that I'm right. Try another analogy because this one just doesn't make sense. I don't know the technical name of the crime, but I do know that it is a crime planning to assassinate the president. It has nothing to do with free speech. A long time ago, in a thread similar to this, someone said that he was offended by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine because he had a latent drinking problem. He and many others (me included) shouldn't visit certain parts of Wikipedia if we don't want to be offended. If you are offended by someone saying that he or she is a pedophile, then I don't think you should visit Wikipedia at all. -- mvh Björn

On Feb 17, 2006, at 4:03 PM, BJörn Lindqvist wrote: I don't know where you live, but that's definitely *not* the case in, say, the United States. In the United States, rights are a very important part of law. In fact, the United States was founded based upon the philosophical foundation that the *purpose* of law is to protect people's rights. That's why the US Constitution has a "Bill of Rights" that state, in no uncertain terms, that people have certain rights that the government may not infringe upon. Most cases that make it to the Supreme Court are concerned with what rights people have and how those rights conflict or interact. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

Exactly, it is not user boxes, but offensive user boxes. Fred On Feb 17, 2006, at 5:38 PM, Philip Welch wrote:

On 2/18/06, Philip Welch &lt;wikipedia(a)philwelch.net&gt; wrote: Again IANAL but I believe you are right. But for normal trials in the US, is the constitution really involved? If you do something that the normal law does not forbid, but that the US Constitution doesn't guarantee your right to do, can the judicial system then decide whether doing so is legal or illegal? Steve Bennet said that there is no given right to write whatever you want on your user page. I said that it hasn't been stated in any Wikipedia law that writing pedophile on your user page is forbidden. Considering those two facts (and no other facts such as "blatant trolling") I believe that a normal judicial system would *not* find writing pedophile on your user page forbidden. Yes? -- mvh Björn

If you mean workplace as in office, then NO. Neither the Wikipedia: nor the User: name spaces are like a workplace. The behavioral guidelines of most offices are so strict that not 0.01% of what is allowed on Wikipedia would be allowed there. If you mean workplace as in "a place where people do work," then yes, maybe. But be aware that porn workers also has a place where they work.... The workplace analogy is just stupid and doesn't work. Contributors to any compilation of the sum of human knowledge is bound to contain individuals that will offend someone. Defining who the offensive individuals are is tricky. But it seems like you want to define them by the labels they attach to themselves. Regretfully, there are quite a few sick perverts around the world. Are they disallowed from contributing to Wikipedia? Are they disallowed from telling the world that they are sick perverts on their user page? You are hand-waiving about that hate speech is not allowed on user pages but no one has contested that! The question is whether you can write "sick pervert" on your user page. Is the answer YES or is it NO? -- mvh Björn

Philip Welch wrote: How do women feel about the law against having sex with men? -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

This kind of liberty is important for governments to grant because (A) They have a monopoly on coercion and (B) They do not grant you a right to fork, and they do not always grant you a right to leave. Neither of which applies to Wikipedia. "If you don't like it, leave" doesn't apply to federal governments, and an oppressive government can really hurt you. The analogy between Wikipedia and a government, or the US Bill of Rights is completely out of place. Ryan

May it please the God-King, the Court's Judgement is as follows: Henceforth the Court shall recognise that all Parties to this Thread, whether past, present or future, are Fish, having the Qualities of Fish and the Rights , Duties and Debentures of Fish. They are hereby empowered to place on their Userpages, whether by Hand, Flipper, Claw, Pincer, pectoral Fin, Pseudopod, Mandible, or through any other Means available to Fish, being Denizens of the Water, or by any Agency natural or supernatural, the Words "I am a Fish" in English or any other language generally comprehensible to Wikipedians of the common Sort (see [[WP:FISH]]). Signed this day of February, the Year of our Lord Tony Sidaway Clerk of Court of the God-King Jimbo (Piscatorial Division)

On 2/19/06, ABCD &lt;en.abcd(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I kinda guessed it would have something appropriate. You searched for "WP:ABCD" [Index] No page with that title exists. You can create this article or request it.

On 2/18/06, Tony Sidaway &lt;f.crdfa(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: In support of this, I have created {{user fish}} -- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]