I have been watching the "vote" and conversation here regarding User:Jesus_is_Lord! with interest. I am saddened to see what I believe is a mob justice attitude developing. I wish there were something I could do, since I believe this is unfolding most unfairly, and in a fashion detrimental to the Wiki. The first edits under the name Jesus_is_Lord! began October 6. Generally, the edits appear helpful and in good faith. Most have been made to articles addressing homosexual issues. In contrast to the assumption many have made (me included until I read through the history), the edits do not reflect an anti-gay bias. Several users complained about the name, here on the mailing list and on the wiki. There was brief discussion that rapidly deteriorated into a "vote". While a majority of people have "voted" to impose a mandatory name change, there are also clear reservations. I am concerned about several aspects of this, um, process. 1. The vote took place before discussion was complete, which isn't supposed to be how we do things. 2. I am really rather dumbfounded by the number of Wikipedians who usually have a strong libertarian bias and are ordinarily ardent supporters of freedom of expression, who have voted to force a name change. These are largely the same people so strongly oppose censorship of any kind when the substance of the material is different. 3. Forcing a name change in this case is inconsistent with our treatment of other, similar users. In the interest of fairness and consistency, if we are going to force a name change by technical means in this case, we ought to in the several others that have been enumerated in previous posts to the list. 4. I believe that there are elements of retributive justice in some people's thinking, as in SV's statement that "the guy was being a jerk -- making him change his name was a way to tap him on the shoulder, and ask him to pay attention to the wikiworld around him." This line of reasoning has no place here. The fact that the user has limited history, appears to have edited under other names, is making edits some object to, etc etc etc etc should have nothing to do with the decision making here. 5. I also believe that a "herd mentality" has developed in the vote: people are voting to force a change because they want to support other users who have already voted the same way. I steadfastly refuse that the 20 or so wikipedians who have voted this way have each independently evaluated the evidence and made a thoughtful decision on the merits. 6. The "there ought to be a law" ad hoc invention of rules and governance procedures is simply inappropriate at Wikipedia, except in egregious cases, which this isn't. 7. The various threats of immediate action by developers who have the technical means at their disposal to carry them out, are uncalled for and have made consensus harder to achieve. 8. Lastly, forcing someone to change their name through technical means is not going to build community. It is not going to bring the Wikipedians closer together, or build solidarity, or make WP a more comfortable, friendly project. There is an old saying: Friends come and go, while enemies tend to accumulate over time. Is it worth it for us to make another user upset with Wikipedia? So, in light of all this, I once again call for the vote to be discontinued, and encourage everyone who has taken strong positions one way or another to retract them so that there is enough space for discussion and consensus. Respectfully Louis

Nonsense. Jesus is Lord! (with the exclamation mark) needs to put his flame out and pick a name which the tribe agrees with. Even Jimbo is not immune to a vote on his username on the grounds that it may meet with disagreement. Go ahead -- try it out. See what it gets. The vote is a way of registering discussion, Mr 24-- in case you hadnt noticed. I understand Jesus is Lord! wants to take advantage of people like Mr Starlings pleasant and non-confrontational demeanor, but there are plenty of precedents for namechanges, and since they are all subjective, they fall to a vote. The tribe has spoken. Finally, whoever came up with the notion that it fell to the developers to enforce anything? This must be where Ed's been getting his notions of power from! ~S~ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com

Rick wrote: I reviewed the edits carefully. The user expanded an existing definition of this word written several months ago by an IP user, and then merged it with "homophobic hate speech," replacing the original entry with a redirect. His expansion of the definition appeared to be in good faith, though there was room for improvement which, due to the power of the wiki, has already been provided by others. Merging a pejorative term into an article on "homophobic hate speech" and getting it out of the main namespace, IMO, is laudatory, as it makes the nature of the word very clear. As many contributors are aware, there is a growing number of Chritian churches and congregations that are proponents of equal treatment of GBLT people, and who do not consider GBLT lifestyles and sexual acts sinful. Most prominent among these are the many UCC congregations who have adopted a public "Open and Accepting" stance toward GBLT people. Though small in number of followers, many meetings of the Society of Friends (Quakers) have had such a doctrine for years. And there are a few Catholic congregations that, in spite of official doctrine, publicly support gay and lesbian people and lifestyles. Louis

[Sent to both <wikiEN-L> and directly to RickK by email, since RickK seems to have requested that.] RickK wrote: But isn't that what the word in fact means? To report on anti-gay prejudice is not to be anti-gay; quite the contrary. I found the article informative, and I'm hardly anti-gay. While I have grave suspicions about JiL's intentions here, I must protest the condemnation of this article /as such/. If JiL is anti-gay, then he is being more subtle about it (as any decent troll would be) than you seem to be inferring. Indeed, this is the perfect edit for a troll; it would let a troll call us "fudgepackers" in its heart, while not explicitly condoning the word's usage in any of the article text that the troll actually writes. But the proper response is to neutralise the troll's activities -- say by incorporating the information into [[Homophobic hate speech]] on the grounds that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, thus avoiding a proliferation of articles named after slurs without any appearance of direct censorship -- rather than to attack the troll directly, which only feeds it. (I'm not committed to the position that JiL is a troll, BTW. But I find it a plausible hypothesis, and I'm willing to accept it for the sake of this argument.) -- Toby

Stevertigo wrote: The only misunderstanding of NPOV is by people trying to change the name (some of them, that is, not all). Nobody claims that the name is NPOV. But we allow plenty of POV on Wikipedia -- on talk pages, on user pages, on [[meta:]] and in the [[Wikipedia:]] namespace when signed, and even in article pages when attributed to relevant authorities. We also allow it on [[Special:Recentchanges]] in edit summaries. If we're not going to allow it on [[Special:Recentchanges]] in usernames, then this is a new idea, not some well-known and obvious fact. (We also allow POV on [[meta:]] and in the [[Wikipedia:]] namespace when unsigned -- that is in the policies and guidelines of the project -- but limited to opinions about the project itself, which must be positive.) This is all quite reasonable -- Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation take no opinion on the various controversies that may arise, but individual Wikipedians do have opinions, and nobody denies this. And Wikipedia even keeps its own good opinion of itself outside of the encyclopaedia proper (thus [[Wikipedia]] is NPOV, even though [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia]] is not). This doesn't impinge on the question of whether [[User:Jesus is Lord!]] causes /offence/ -- that is another matter, and it does seem to do so, even if only to "1.5 people", in Ed's words. But /if/ JiL is a troll and intended to cause offence, then reacting as if we are offended (whether or not we are!) is, precisely, feeding the troll. That's why I'm trying to talk to JiL as if he's not a troll, to convince him that it is a good thing to change his name to something along the lines of [[User:Subject of Lord Jesus]]. This is the right thing to do regardless of his true intentions. And this is not to say that users should be deliberately inflammatory. If that's JiL intention, then this person should be ashamed -- obviously. But users do have opinions, and I for one am grateful when a user states their biases up front so that I can watch out if necessary. If /this/ was JiL's intention, then it is to be lauded, even the means chosen to do so were not ideal. -- Toby

From: "sannse" &lt;sannse(a)delphiforums.com&gt; To: "English Wikipedia" &lt;wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org&gt; Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 1:49 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change the are I agree with sannse. -Evil saltine