Hatred leads to murder. Murder is bad. But should Wikipedia officially oppose hatred? Or mass murder?
Given that Jimbo regularly intersperses his mailing list posts with terms like "WikiLove" and urges us all to communicate cordially, perhaps a time will come when Wikipedia can move from near-anarchy and/or benign dictatorship to some sort of constitutional democracy. If so, a statement of values may be necessary.
Values inform rules. We can't just make up rules out of the thin air, and voting on them won't work if for no other reason than ballot-stuffing can't be tracked.
Yet the mainstay of Wikipedia's conflict resolution policy, indeed the only thing that allows it to be an open WIKI, is that all views are tolerated; i.e., no view is endorsed when there's a controversy. We all hesitate to tamper with this policy that has served us so well. But it has its weaknesses.
* There's no way to stop people from their Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic rants. * The debate over mass murder (i.e., "genocide") carried out by Communist regimes always causes deadlock via page protection and bannings.
I mean, if hate and murder are such problems maybe we should officially label them as "bad".
Ed Poor (speaking for myself)
I havn't stopped beating my wife yet, if that's what you mean... I don't really think that we are forced to endorse mass murder, but there are reasonable people who think that it is occasionally the better of two evils. (Hiroshima springs to mind) Better to describe what happened, and leave the endorsing or opposing to other forums. Mark
--- "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
Hatred leads to murder. Murder is bad. But should Wikipedia officially oppose hatred? Or mass murder?
Given that Jimbo regularly intersperses his mailing list posts with terms like "WikiLove" and urges us all to communicate cordially, perhaps a time will come when Wikipedia can move from near-anarchy and/or benign dictatorship to some sort of constitutional democracy. If so, a statement of values may be necessary.
Values inform rules. We can't just make up rules out of the thin air, and voting on them won't work if for no other reason than ballot-stuffing can't be tracked.
Yet the mainstay of Wikipedia's conflict resolution policy, indeed the only thing that allows it to be an open WIKI, is that all views are tolerated; i.e., no view is endorsed when there's a controversy. We all hesitate to tamper with this policy that has served us so well. But it has its weaknesses.
- There's no way to stop people from their
Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic rants.
- The debate over mass murder (i.e., "genocide")
carried out by Communist regimes always causes deadlock via page protection and bannings.
I mean, if hate and murder are such problems maybe we should officially label them as "bad".
Ed Poor (speaking for myself) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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--- "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
Hatred leads to murder. Murder is bad. But should Wikipedia officially oppose hatred? Or mass murder?
Hatred does not necessarily lead to murder. Some people hate mildly, and nevere kill. Others hate a lot and not kill. Yet others hate not at all and still kill. Yet others kill accidentally. Murder is bad, given the definition of murder as a non-government-allowed activity. Yet when governments commit murder, the international community sometimes steps in. The definition of murder is thus also iffy.
Does W oppose hatred? I don't think so. We're like journalists in a war. We take neither side, and rather strive to give balanced and non-point of view accounts of the events and circumstances.
Given that Jimbo regularly intersperses his mailing list posts with terms like "WikiLove" and urges us all to communicate cordially, perhaps a time will come when Wikipedia can move from near-anarchy and/or benign dictatorship to some sort of constitutional democracy. If so, a statement of values may be necessary.
Values inform rules. We can't just make up rules out of the thin air, and voting on them won't work if for no other reason than ballot-stuffing can't be tracked.
Indeed, until accurate and tamper-proof voting can be effected, the primary means of discussion will remain the forum, such as this mailing list.
Yet the mainstay of Wikipedia's conflict resolution policy, indeed the only thing that allows it to be an open WIKI, is that all views are tolerated; i.e., no view is endorsed when there's a controversy. We all hesitate to tamper with this policy that has served us so well. But it has its weaknesses.
- There's no way to stop people from their Holocaust-denying,
anti-Semitic rants.
- The debate over mass murder (i.e., "genocide") carried out by
Communist regimes always causes deadlock via page protection and bannings.
I think rather that this is a strength. Just as you cannot stop the two activities above, you cannot stop, by the same mechanism, dissemination of information about democracy, about different cultures, religions, opinions, knowledge of events, and views that generally dissent from the "official" view.
I mean, if hate and murder are such problems maybe we should officially label them as "bad".
And they are, already, in the world, generally labeled as bad.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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Christopher Mahan wrote
Does W oppose hatred? I don't think so. We're like journalists in a war. We take neither side, and rather strive to give balanced and non-point of view accounts of the events and circumstances.
Hang on there. David Gerard may be right to argue that if Wikipedia is to treat any postings as if they really constituted 'incitement', then the grounds have to be watertight in a way that is not so easy to be. That doesn't mean that we can't argue that in the text of Wikipedia there is an a fortiori reason or ten not to have anything promoting hatred. The NPOV is for the text; one has to believe that promoting NPOV is what a conflict like say Northern Ireland's Troubles needs. Otherwise WP would seem like a bad idea. But none of that means that WP's collective values are 'relativist' or hands-off. A scholar can be scrupulous but also a passionate believer in values that are not intentionally or propagandistically pushed in what he or she writes.
Charles
--- Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Christopher Mahan wrote
Does W oppose hatred? I don't think so. We're like journalists in
a
war. We take neither side, and rather strive to give balanced and non-point of view accounts of the events and circumstances.
Hang on there. David Gerard may be right to argue that if Wikipedia is to treat any postings as if they really constituted 'incitement', then the grounds have to be watertight in a way that is not so easy to be. That doesn't mean that we can't argue that in the text of Wikipedia there is an a fortiori reason or ten not to have anything promoting hatred. The NPOV is for the text; one has to believe that promoting NPOV is what a conflict like say Northern Ireland's Troubles needs. Otherwise WP would seem like a bad idea. But none of that means that WP's collective values are 'relativist' or hands-off. A scholar can be scrupulous but also a passionate believer in values that are not intentionally or propagandistically pushed in what he or she writes.
Charles,
If the W has a social goal to make the world a better place, it is solely through the exposition of facts. The W should not, and indeed does not by virtue of the NPOV policy, tell people how they should behave (hate or not), how they should think, and how they should interpret the information in the W.
Induvidual contributors answer to themselves, and have to decide for themselves whether they want to contribute to the W. I strongly support that contributors should be able to communicate and behave on the site in the way which best fit their convictions.
The bit at the end about scholars being biased ultimately points to my point: that you have to allow all to express themselves in order to have a non-biased result.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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Christopher Mahan wrote
If the W has a social goal to make the world a better place, it is solely through the exposition of facts.
Well, no, that's not really decided. A successful wiki is a community with an appropriate technology attached (and not the other way round). The policy comes from the community end. In time the policy approved of by most users might not be that. Of course, it might be problematic, and detrimental to what WP has done well. (Example: giving medical advice rather than presenting facts about medecine.) But it is too sweeping to assume _no_ advice or ethical component, ever.
Charles
--- Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
But it is too sweeping to assume _no_ advice or ethical component, ever.
You're right. I only meant it was a goal, not what was actually happening. And I certainly can't speak about the future will bring.
Yet, as an avowed NPOV international encyclopedia, it should be the W's goal.
By W I mean Wikipedia, not any other project of wikimedia.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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