From: Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 22:49:17 +0100 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] No more blocking people for who they *are*?
Hi all, Just a thought in the wake of the pedophile thing. Could we agree not to ever again block people for what they are? No matter how disgusting, unpleasant, immoral etc. Such things always being at least somewhat objective, we should stick instead to only blocking people for actions.
In other words: If someone says, "I'm a pedophile", then by policy this should not be a reason to block them. If, on the other hand, they are trolling, and it works, then that becomes a blockable action - trolling.
I worry that there is a genuine slippery slope where "I am a pedophile" gets confused with "I am a terrorist", then "I am a member of Hamas" then "I support Eta" and so on and so forth. Is it not better to simply say "We do not block people for statements of who they are or what they believe"?
Steve
Umm, no. Some things just aren't funny -- try going into an airport and joking about having a bomb and see how far your "I was just joking!" excuse gets while you're being cuffed and hauled to jail. "Joking" that you are a pedophile is no different in my mind.
What is staring to kill me is that people feel hey have a RIGHT to edit Wikipedia. Editing Wikipedia is a privilege and if you demonstrate you're a dolt and can't handle that then there should be no question your ability to edit should be revoked for a set period of time or indefinitely. We're talking about a user here who's vast majority of time has been spent putting all the "funny" boxes on his user page and embarrassing the good name of a rock and roll legend.
If we continue to allow the user space to be populated with "funny" little boxes and statements that have no fathomable use towards writing an encyclopedia then we might as well shut the foundation down and call up Rupert Murdoch to tell him he forgot to buy a part of MySpace.
--Guy (User:Wgfinley)
W. Guy Finley wrote:
Umm, no. Some things just aren't funny -- try going into an airport and joking about having a bomb and see how far your "I was just joking!" excuse gets while you're being cuffed and hauled to jail. "Joking" that you are a pedophile is no different in my mind.
Joking about having a bomb in an airport or actually having one is illegal. Joking about being a pedophile or actually being one is not.
Still no difference in your mind?
Bomb 'jokes' are illegal because they create a risk of panic which could lead to injuries. Ditto shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater unless it actually is on fire. Likewise verbal plans or exhortations to commit criminal acts. Everything else is 'free speech' and allowed in most countries.
If we want to be TECHNICAL then Wikipedia allowing people to say 'I am a heterosexual' but not 'I am a pedophile' (or 'I am a homosexual'... as some of the anti-pedophile crowd were also advocating banning) is discriminatory under US law. Ditto allowing 'I am a Christian' but not 'I am a Satanist'. Since we aren't getting government funding or paying people to work on the encyclopedia we're actually allowed to discriminate, but don't expect it to be universally popular.
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Conrad Dunkerson Sent: Wednesday, 8 February 2006 10:30 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] No more blocking people for who they *are*?
W. Guy Finley wrote:
Umm, no. Some things just aren't funny -- try going into
an airport
and joking about having a bomb and see how far your "I was just joking!" excuse gets while you're being cuffed and hauled to jail. "Joking" that you are a pedophile is no different in my mind.
Joking about having a bomb in an airport or actually having one is illegal. Joking about being a pedophile or actually being one is not.
Still no difference in your mind?
Ummm, I think he sees both as equally unfunny.
Pete, inclined to agree
On 2/8/06, Conrad Dunkerson conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net wrote:
Bomb 'jokes' are illegal because they create a risk of panic which could lead to injuries. Ditto shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater unless it actually is on fire. Likewise verbal plans or exhortations to commit criminal acts. Everything else is 'free speech' and allowed in most countries.
I quite specifically said I thought it was ok to block someone for trolling. If someone lets slip, in the midst of editing an article on a WWII aircraft, that they like small boys, no harm done. If someone creates a mass argument by publicly declaring with a userbox that they're a pedophile, block them (as Jimbo did) for disruptive trolling.
There's no particular right to free speech in Wikipedia user pages that I'm aware of.
Steve
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of W. Guy Finley
Umm, no. Some things just aren't funny -- try going into an airport and joking about having a bomb and see how far your "I was just joking!" excuse gets while you're being cuffed and hauled to jail. "Joking" that you are a pedophile is no different in my mind.
In this case, he may have been serious. The guy identifies as "16-ish". Isn't he allowed to have feelings for others of a similar age? Describing himself as a "paedophile" might have been unwise, but not necessarily anything we should run around being headless chickens over.
Pete, acting like a grown-up
Peter Mackay wrote:
In this case, he may have been serious. The guy identifies as "16-ish". Isn't he allowed to have feelings for others of a similar age? Describing himself as a "paedophile" might have been unwise, but not necessarily anything we should run around being headless chickens over.
Pete, acting like a grown-up
I don't want to get into the morass of definitions for these things, but pedophilia relates to prepubescent children, not those of a similar age to "16-ish". The term for a fixation on teenagers is ephebophilia, and it doesn't apply to a 16-ish person either.
Just thought I'd clarify that.
-- Jake
On Feb 7, 2006, at 7:10 PM, Jake Nelson wrote:
Peter Mackay wrote:
In this case, he may have been serious. The guy identifies as "16- ish". Isn't he allowed to have feelings for others of a similar age? Describing himself as a "paedophile" might have been unwise, but not necessarily anything we should run around being headless chickens over. Pete, acting like a grown-up
I don't want to get into the morass of definitions for these things, but pedophilia relates to prepubescent children, not those of a similar age to "16-ish". The term for a fixation on teenagers is ephebophilia, and it doesn't apply to a 16-ish person either.
Just thought I'd clarify that.
In addition, pedophilia does not imply any form of child molestation, as it appears Wgfinley believes (if I'm incorrect in this inference, my apologies). Pedophilia simply refers to attraction.
Regards, [[en:User:Bbatsell]]
--- Jake Nelson duskwave@gmail.com wrote:
Peter Mackay wrote:
In this case, he may have been serious. The guy identifies as "16-ish". Isn't he allowed to have feelings for others of a similar age? Describing himself as a "paedophile" might have been unwise, but not necessarily anything we should run around being headless chickens over.
I don't want to get into the morass of definitions for these things, but pedophilia relates to prepubescent children, not those of a similar age to "16-ish". The term for a fixation on teenagers is ephebophilia, and it doesn't apply to a 16-ish person either.
Just thought I'd clarify that.
To clarify further, as our article on [[pedophilia]] says, "In addition to its strictest medical sense, the term `pedophile' is frequently used to denote either an ephebophile or a perpetrator of child sexual abuse. Such broader definitions are often used by the general public, and include many people who do not meet the medical criteria for diagnosis of pedophilia."
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jake Nelson
Peter Mackay wrote:
In this case, he may have been serious. The guy identifies
as "16-ish".
Isn't he allowed to have feelings for others of a similar age? Describing himself as a "paedophile" might have been
unwise, but not
necessarily anything we should run around being headless
chickens over.
Pete, acting like a grown-up
I don't want to get into the morass of definitions for these things, but pedophilia relates to prepubescent children, not those of a similar age to "16-ish". The term for a fixation on teenagers is ephebophilia, and it doesn't apply to a 16-ish person either.
Just thought I'd clarify that.
Thanks. May I make the point that it would be a rare teenager to be aware of such terms and distinctions?
Pete, who hadn't been aware of the meaning of at least one of those words until a few moments ago
W. Guy Finley wrote:
What is staring to kill me is that people feel hey have a RIGHT to edit Wikipedia. Editing Wikipedia is a privilege and if you demonstrate you're a dolt and can't handle that then there should be no question your ability to edit should be revoked for a set period of time or indefinitely. We're talking about a user here who's vast majority of time has been spent putting all the "funny" boxes on his user page and embarrassing the good name of a rock and roll legend.
I don't think anyone is arguing that there is a fundamental right to edit Wikipedia. Rather, the claim is that Wikipedia's mission of writing a neutral, high-quality encyclopedia is not well served by excessive policing of users to cull the ones who express opinions deemed "embarrassing". It seems more useful to limit banning to the cases where a user is actually disrupting the process of writing an encyclopedia, e.g. by edit-warring or spamming.
-Mark