On a related note, [[User:Bhadani]] has been agitating to enforce his own interpretation of the laws of India, supposedly banning certain separatist political statements, against [[User:Anwar saadat]]. He seems to be convinced the Indian government will ban Wikipedia if it does not act to suppress such statements if the people making them might possibly be Indian citizens, and he is prepared to take vigilante action to enforce this view of the law by deleting things from user pages of others.
What *is* it about people lately thinking that Wikipedia, and its editors, need to be law enforcement officials with regard to whatever oppressively anti-free-speech laws exist in different countries?
On 5/14/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
What *is* it about people lately thinking that Wikipedia, and its editors, need to be law enforcement officials with regard to whatever oppressively anti-free-speech laws exist in different countries?
Critical mass. In the past we didn't have people who understood various local anti freedom of speach laws but didn't understand why they did not apply in any real way to wikipedia. Also no one of significance had blocked us for very long.
The Indian Government does not have the authority to ban sites as it pleases without taking the risk of being maligned by the opposition parties-let us not forget that India is far more democratic than China (another discussion about the latter is in progress) . If by "seperatist political statements" Bhadani means that Anwaar Saadat is campaigning for a "liberated Kashmir", then the latter (under the Indian Constitution) has every right to do so-assuming he is an Indian citizen. However if he begins to act overly suspicious the security forces do reserve the right to scan his e-mails etc. to make sure he doesn't take more....proactive....steps in the direction of his political views.