On 2/7/06 7:15 PM, "wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org" wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org wrote:
From: Delirium delirium@hackish.org Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 19:06:43 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] No more blocking people for who they *are*?
charles matthews wrote:
"Steve Bennett" wrote
Could we agree
not to ever again block people for what they are?
Easy to say that in the context that Wikipedia is not under siege, and has its reputation pretty much intact. What about the guy who arrives in the middle of an election and annouces "I'm being funded to remove all your bias on candidates' pages"?
I don't see why that would require preemptive banning. If he makes problematic edits, they can be reverted; if he starts ignoring usual community standards, e.g. by refusal to discuss on talk pages or excessive reverts, he can be banned.
There are cases where preemptive banning makes some sense, mainly obvious reincarnations of banned users and malicious bot-created accounts. In the latter, this is mainly because the potential damage a botnet can inflict in a short amount of time is quite large, so waiting around and cleaning up afterwards is an unappealing option.
In a case like the one you described, though, the potential damage to Wikipedia's reputation from being too ban-happy far outweighs the relatively minor inconvenience of waiting a bit to see if banning is really necessary. The clean-up there would consist of reverting a handful of pages.
-Mark
I can't believe where this is going.
I have it, lets form a committee to review all of his edits, maybe even stop by his house and see if he actually IS a pedophile before we do anything! Yes, yes, wonderful idea!! After all, it's far more vital to the project that people be allowed to make bold statements such as condoning or making light of molesting children on their user page than risk losing the incredibly valuable contributions such a person is bound to make to the project.
Have I crossed into the frakking Bizarro world here or something? What the hell is this NONSENSE?? The guy puts on his page "I am a pedophile" i.e. "I molest children" and his "joke" is more important than the obvious disruption it causes? More important than the blatant insensitivity to those who have had someone in their family molested or perhaps even molested themselves? The fact that this has absofrakkinglutely NOTHING to do with CREATING AN ENCYCLOPEDIA???
Yes, by all means, let's protect and hold up this fine example of a contributor to our project, send him out on the press stops with Jimbo! After all, if he does any damage it's just to a few pages. Heck, who cares if some 13-year-old girl who gets molested nightly by her father is doing some research on "pedophiles" on Wikipedia and comes across someone who is proclaimed to be one and we allow to continue to be here as a valued contributor to our community. Who cares right? It's just a few pages.
--Guy (User:Wgfinley)
W. Guy Finley wrote:
Have I crossed into the frakking Bizarro world here or something? What the hell is this NONSENSE?? The guy puts on his page "I am a pedophile" i.e. "I molest children" and his "joke" is more important than the obvious disruption it causes? More important than the blatant insensitivity to those who have had someone in their family molested or perhaps even molested themselves? The fact that this has absofrakkinglutely NOTHING to do with CREATING AN ENCYCLOPEDIA???
There are a lot of things people are greatly offended by on a personal level, even moreso than they are offended by pedophilia. Who is going to draw up the list of things one cannot say on their user page due to it being too blatantly insensitive? It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense. Does that complete the list? Neo-Nazis and pedophiles out; everybody else ok? Well, I suppose "I support suicide bombings" is probably out too. Is the ArbCom going to be in charge of making these decisions?
-Mark
There are a lot of things people are greatly offended by on a personal level, even moreso than they are offended by pedophilia. Who is going to draw up the list of things one cannot say on their user page due to it being too blatantly insensitive? It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense. Does that complete the list? Neo-Nazis and pedophiles out; everybody else ok? Well, I suppose "I support suicide bombings" is probably out too. Is the ArbCom going to be in charge of making these decisions?
We had a user once (User:The Fascist Chicken) who was, in fact, an avowed fascist. Maybe he should have been banned for that, because, obviously, he was implying "I murder Jews".
Delirium wrote:
It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense. Does that complete the list? Neo-Nazis and pedophiles out; everybody else ok? Well, I suppose "I support suicide bombings" is probably out too. Is the ArbCom going to be in charge of making these decisions?
I think you meant your question to be rhetorical, but the answer is of course "yes". There is a question of what is good or bad for the project as a whole, and we all agree (right?) that people acting in a disruptive way or in a way that causes harm to our charitable mission can be banned from the project. (I say "can be" because it is frequently our judgment that although we could ban certain people, it's easier on net to do something else.)
In a great many cases, what counts as disruption or harm to the project as a whole will come down to some very difficult judgment calls. And yes, the ArbCom is tasked with making those judgment calls.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Delirium wrote:
It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense. Does that complete the list? Neo-Nazis and pedophiles out; everybody else ok? Well, I suppose "I support suicide bombings" is probably out too. Is the ArbCom going to be in charge of making these decisions?
I think you meant your question to be rhetorical, but the answer is of course "yes". There is a question of what is good or bad for the project as a whole, and we all agree (right?) that people acting in a disruptive way or in a way that causes harm to our charitable mission can be banned from the project. (I say "can be" because it is frequently our judgment that although we could ban certain people, it's easier on net to do something else.)
No, I don't agree with that blanket statement. Only people who act in a way that impedes the process of *writing an encyclopedia* should be banned.
I also object to a strongly US- and Euro-centric view of what is "offensive" versus "not offensive". Why should US and European cultural norms be the imposed standards?
-Mark
Let's use Middle Eastern cultural norms and ban all Pedophiles in addition to jewish people, homosexuals, christians, et al
(No need to call PC on me I am jewish myself)
shall I go on?
On 2/8/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Delirium wrote:
It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense. Does that complete the list? Neo-Nazis and pedophiles out; everybody else ok? Well, I suppose "I support suicide bombings" is probably out too. Is the ArbCom going to be in charge of making these decisions?
I think you meant your question to be rhetorical, but the answer is of course "yes". There is a question of what is good or bad for the project as a whole, and we all agree (right?) that people acting in a disruptive way or in a way that causes harm to our charitable mission can be banned from the project. (I say "can be" because it is frequently our judgment that although we could ban certain people, it's easier on net to do something else.)
No, I don't agree with that blanket statement. Only people who act in a way that impedes the process of *writing an encyclopedia* should be banned.
I also object to a strongly US- and Euro-centric view of what is "offensive" versus "not offensive". Why should US and European cultural norms be the imposed standards?
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- ~Ilya N. http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia) http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
Ilya N. wrote:
Let's use Middle Eastern cultural norms and ban all Pedophiles in addition to jewish people, homosexuals, christians, et al
(No need to call PC on me I am jewish myself)
shall I go on?
That's exactly my point---there are plenty of things that offend many millions (billions?) of people in the world, some of them very gravely. We simply can't afford to start banning people to avoid negative PR, because it requires banning too many people.
An alternative is only to ban people who would generate negative PR in European and American culture, and tell the other cultures to fuck off, but I don't think that's a reasonable approach.
Yet a third approach, the current one seems, to be to ban people who a certain subset of Americans and Europeans, represented in proxy by Jimbo and the Arbitration Committee, deem offensive. Presumably this lines up mostly with U.S. and European cultural norms, but might reject some of them (like banning Satanists or Stalinists). As you might expect, I don't think that's a reasonable approach either, especially for an encyclopedia that strives not to be provincial.
-Mark
You totally missed my point.
We can be as open as anyone, but there has to be a place to draw the line. The reason we use US/Euro cultures is because an overwhelming majority of users on en.wiki are from said culture.
"Where should the line be drawn?" was never a compelling argument for drawing no line at all.
On 2/8/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Ilya N. wrote:
Let's use Middle Eastern cultural norms and ban all Pedophiles in
addition
to jewish people, homosexuals, christians, et al
(No need to call PC on me I am jewish myself)
shall I go on?
That's exactly my point---there are plenty of things that offend many millions (billions?) of people in the world, some of them very gravely. We simply can't afford to start banning people to avoid negative PR, because it requires banning too many people.
An alternative is only to ban people who would generate negative PR in European and American culture, and tell the other cultures to fuck off, but I don't think that's a reasonable approach.
Yet a third approach, the current one seems, to be to ban people who a certain subset of Americans and Europeans, represented in proxy by Jimbo and the Arbitration Committee, deem offensive. Presumably this lines up mostly with U.S. and European cultural norms, but might reject some of them (like banning Satanists or Stalinists). As you might expect, I don't think that's a reasonable approach either, especially for an encyclopedia that strives not to be provincial.
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- ~Ilya N. http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia) http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
Ilya N. wrote:
We can be as open as anyone, but there has to be a place to draw the line. The reason we use US/Euro cultures is because an overwhelming majority of users on en.wiki are from said culture.
That's a pretty problematic argument too. Should ar.wiki ban users who hold beliefs considered offensive in the Arabic world? Or is only en.wiki allowed to self-police in that manner?
-Mark
On 2/7/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense.
It has? By whom?
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
On 2/7/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense.
It has? By whom?
I don't recall by whom, but fortunately I don't have to go digging because Jimbo just suggested it again.
-Mark
On 2/9/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 2/7/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense.
It has? By whom?
I don't recall by whom, but fortunately I don't have to go digging because Jimbo just suggested it again.
-Mark
Awhile ago there was someone who posted on an external neo-nazi discussion board about editing, who was subsequently blocked on wikipedia. Big discussion on the mailinglist ensued.
Don't remember what he was called though.
On 2/9/06, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 2/7/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
It's been suggested in the past that saying "I'm a neo-Nazi" ought to be a bannable offense.
It has? By whom?
I don't recall by whom, but fortunately I don't have to go digging because Jimbo just suggested it again.
-Mark
Awhile ago there was someone who posted on an external neo-nazi discussion board about editing, who was subsequently blocked on wikipedia. Big discussion on the mailinglist ensued.
Don't remember what he was called though.
That was user Amalekite / [[Alex Linder]], and he was blocked for endangering Wikipedians (he also suggested ways of subverting Wikipedia using sockpuppets and proxies). Nevertheless, he wasn't blocked for simply being a neo-Nazi/white supremacist; neo-Nazis/white supremacists regularly post on Wikipedia.
Jay.
On 2/9/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
That was user Amalekite / [[Alex Linder]], and he was blocked for endangering Wikipedians (he also suggested ways of subverting Wikipedia using sockpuppets and proxies). Nevertheless, he wasn't blocked for simply being a neo-Nazi/white supremacist; neo-Nazis/white supremacists regularly post on Wikipedia.
Seems reasonable to me - to exclude their input would be to create a deliberate bias. Would we allow relatives of victims of Auschwitz to edit, but not relatives of Nazis who worked at Auschwitz?
Steve
On Feb 9, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
Seems reasonable to me - to exclude their input would be to create a deliberate bias. Would we allow relatives of victims of Auschwitz to edit, but not relatives of Nazis who worked at Auschwitz?
That's a slippery slope. I mean, yeah, I'd rather not block either side. But if it comes to a point where we block Nazis, am I going to shed too many tears? No. No, I'm not.
-Phil
On 2/9/06, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
That's a slippery slope. I mean, yeah, I'd rather not block either side. But if it comes to a point where we block Nazis, am I going to shed too many tears? No. No, I'm not.
It's a very short slippery slope to *not* block (since apparently we're not blocking anyone on ideological grounds, except possibly pedophiles). It's a very long slippery slope to *start* blocking.
Steve
On 2/9/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
That was user Amalekite / [[Alex Linder]], and he was blocked for endangering Wikipedians (he also suggested ways of subverting Wikipedia using sockpuppets and proxies). Nevertheless, he wasn't blocked for
simply
being a neo-Nazi/white supremacist; neo-Nazis/white supremacists
regularly
post on Wikipedia.
Seems reasonable to me - to exclude their input would be to create a deliberate bias.
In reality, though, neo-Nazis/white supremacists have a great deal of difficulty editing, mostly because they cannot seem to comprehend or abide by content policies like [[WP:NPOV]], [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]]. As well, the interaction policies like [[WP:CIVIL]] and [[WP:NPA]] seem to elude them. Given their views, none of this surprises me.
Would we allow relatives of victims of Auschwitz to
edit, but not relatives of Nazis who worked at Auschwitz?
Not sure how either group would be relevant, since Wikipedia considers personal experience to be a kind of original research, which is not permitted in articles.
Jay.
On 2/9/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
In reality, though, neo-Nazis/white supremacists have a great deal of difficulty editing, mostly because they cannot seem to comprehend or abide by content policies like [[WP:NPOV]], [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]]. As well, the interaction policies like [[WP:CIVIL]] and [[WP:NPA]] seem to elude them. Given their views, none of this surprises me.
Any more so, than say, religious fanatics or pokemon fans?
Would we allow relatives of victims of Auschwitz to
edit, but not relatives of Nazis who worked at Auschwitz?
Not sure how either group would be relevant, since Wikipedia considers personal experience to be a kind of original research, which is not permitted in articles.
Relevant? Most Wikipedia editors write about their own personal interests and experiences, hopefully referring to published facts in the process. It seems likely to me that families of Auschwitz victims might find their way to [[Auschwitz]]. I'm not saying we would make an exception to WP:V for them, but they would probably bring a certain POV to their editing. In my purely idealist way of seeing this, some sort of Nazi sympathiser might bring a sort of counter-balance to that POV.
Totally theoretically, of course..
Steve
On 2/9/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
In reality, though, neo-Nazis/white supremacists have a great deal of difficulty editing, mostly because they cannot seem to comprehend or
abide
by content policies like [[WP:NPOV]], [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]]. As well,
the
interaction policies like [[WP:CIVIL]] and [[WP:NPA]] seem to elude
them.
Given their views, none of this surprises me.
Any more so, than say, religious fanatics or pokemon fans?
"Religious fanatics" are a rather broad group with disparate views, and I don't know how one would measure these things anyway.
Jay.
On 2/9/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Awhile ago there was someone who posted on an external neo-nazi discussion board about editing, who was subsequently blocked on wikipedia. Big discussion on the mailinglist ensued.
That was user Amalekite / [[Alex Linder]], and he was blocked for endangering Wikipedians (he also suggested ways of subverting Wikipedia using sockpuppets and proxies). Nevertheless, he wasn't blocked for simply being a neo-Nazi/white supremacist; neo-Nazis/white supremacists regularly post on Wikipedia.
No neo-Nazis or pedophiles have been blocked because of who they are. A neo-Nazi was blocked for posting on Stormfront a list of editors he thought were Jewish. Another was blocked for posting on his user page an enormous photograph of himself in a uniform making a Nazi salute. Some have been blocked for anti-Semitic abuse. And someone has been blocked for posting a pedophile user box on his user page. These are all provocative acts that have nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia. People are being blocked for provocation, not for who they are.
Sarah
Let's not pretend that it didn't happen.
Actually at the time Carbonite blocked Joeyramoney the first time, he *did* do so with the summary "user identifies himself as a pedophile" and in the deletion discussion he said:
"Just for the record, I plan on indefinitely blocking anyone who uses this template. If someone wants to announce their disgusting tendency to have sexual thoughts about children, so be it. You're not welcome here though. I'd also block anyone identifying themselves as a rapist or murderer. The only user to currently include this template is User:Joeyramoney. He's now been blocked"
He then made the following announcement on the administrators' noticeboard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
"The userbox Template:User pedophile is a great way of identifying those users who consider themselves to be pedophiles. I plan on indefinitely blocking any user who includes this template. I've already blocked the only user to include this template, User:Joeyramoney. Wikipedia has no obligation to permit deviants to edit. If a someone has sexual thoughts about children, keep it to yourself and stay off Wikipedia. I can't even imagine the PR nightmare that the Wikimedia Foundation would face if articles were being written by self-identified pedophiles."
Of course Carbonite's action was utterly unacceptable, but let's not airbrush it out of history. Later blocks on Joeyramoney where on the basis of the assumption that he did so in a deliberate attempt to provoke. There is evidence that he did not intend this, or at least that when he realised what a fuss he had caused he acted sensibly and removed the template.
slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
No neo-Nazis or pedophiles have been blocked because of who they are. A neo-Nazi was blocked for posting on Stormfront a list of editors he thought were Jewish. Another was blocked for posting on his user page an enormous photograph of himself in a uniform making a Nazi salute. Some have been blocked for anti-Semitic abuse. And someone has been blocked for posting a pedophile user box on his user page. These are all provocative acts that have nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia. People are being blocked for provocation, not for who they are.
That seems a false distinction to me---you're defining "provocation" as "stating who they are", but only for certain classes of users (saying you're a Satanist, Republican, or gay is ok, saying you're a neo-Nazi isn't).
In any case, do you consider any of these provocative? They certainly offend me, and are completely unrelated to writing an encyclopedia:
-- [[User:Striver]]: Numerous attacks on the United States; a bunch of 9/11 conspiracy theories
-- Many of the ~200 users including the userbox [[Template:User freedom]] ("This user believes that only articles need reflect a NPOV, and that displaying political, religious, or other beliefs using userboxes and user categories should not be banned")
-- Explicit attacks on others' beliefs, such as the ~20-30 users attacking "Randroids" in one form or another, often accompanied by an X'd out photograph of Ayn Rand, a bunch of anti-Scientology users, and so on.
On 2/9/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
That seems a false distinction to me---you're defining "provocation" as "stating who they are", but only for certain classes of users (saying you're a Satanist, Republican, or gay is ok, saying you're a neo-Nazi isn't).
Sadly, I think the only fair way to treat these is retrospectively - to see if the "provocative" statements actually provoked anyone. With the pedophilia template this was clearly the case.
Note that I'm only talking about justifying blocking someone - a general rule against offensive material on user pages would be a good thing.
Also to clarify for Sarah, my original point in starting this thread was not so much to question whether or not we had blocked inappropriately, but to take stock, and hopefully define once and for all that we do not condone blocking people for who they are or what they believe, no matter how offensive we find it. We only block for actions that harm Wikipedia in some way. I do accept though that blocking someone for an offensive template is a bit of a grey area - is it blocking them for *being*, or for *doing*?
Steve
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of W. Guy Finley
I have it, lets form a committee to review all of his edits, maybe even stop by his house and see if he actually IS a pedophile before we do anything!
I do hope that nobody is considering stalking or investigating or calling on this 16YO.
Reviewing his edits is one thing, but apparently even that is wikistalking, even if you make good edits out of bad.
'Nuff said.
Peter (Skyring)
On 2/8/06, W. Guy Finley wgfinley@dynascope.com wrote:
I have it, lets form a committee to review all of his edits, maybe even stop by his house and see if he actually IS a pedophile before we do anything! Yes, yes, wonderful idea!! After all, it's far more vital to the project that people be allowed to make bold statements such as condoning or making light of molesting children on their user page than risk losing the incredibly valuable contributions such a person is bound to make to the project.
If such a person was discreetly making valuable changes to pages unrelated to children or pedophilia, yes it would be a shame to lose them under anti-pedophilia hysteria.
I'm sure I'll sooner or later get accused of supporting pedophiles, but I'm just trying to be slightly rational here.
Have I crossed into the frakking Bizarro world here or something? What the hell is this NONSENSE?? The guy puts on his page "I am a pedophile" i.e. "I molest children" and his "joke" is more important than the obvious disruption it causes? More important than the blatant insensitivity to
No, it's not. Disruption is bad.
those who have had someone in their family molested or perhaps even molested themselves? The fact that this has absofrakkinglutely NOTHING to do with CREATING AN ENCYCLOPEDIA???
Yes, by all means, let's protect and hold up this fine example of a contributor to our project, send him out on the press stops with Jimbo!
Not blocking is not the same thing as protecting.
Steve