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". -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

Jimmy Wales wrote: 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

Ilya N. wrote: 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

Ilya N. wrote: 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

jayjg wrote: 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, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson(a)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. Jay.

On Feb 9, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Steve Bennett 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. -Phil

On 2/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)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. Would we allow relatives of victims of Auschwitz to 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, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com> wrote: "Religious fanatics" are a rather broad group with disparate views, and I don't know how one would measure these things anyway. Jay.

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'_not… "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.

On 2/9/06, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote: 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