On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 3:40 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
This is a hypothetical which I don't believe will ever arise in reality,
What is?
A perfectly productive pedophile editor.
and certainly not often enough that there is a harm in simply blocking pedophiles on sight.
Are you suggesting that we needn't even address a contention of unjust editing bans, provided that the number of affected individuals is low?
I don't see anything unjust about treating someone differently because they're a pedophile.
Jesse mentioned "the idea that paedophiles are inherently evil and can do no good". I'm not saying that, but I do find the idea that someone who openly admits to being a pedophile (*) could also be a good encyclopedia editor, to be a bit far-fetched.
(*) Which implies that they don't think there's anything wrong with being a pedophile.
I reject the premise that someone who "openly admits to being a pedophile" inherently "[doesn't] think there's anything wrong with [that]."
Perhaps you're taking me out of context, then. In the case in point (and in fact I believe all the cases where pedophiles were blocked), the person was caught effectively bragging about being a pedophile, and it's hard to see how one would get caught without essentially doing just that.
This accurately describes some, of course, but I don't regard any of this as relevant. We routinely ban editors who habitually cause disruption (irrespective of our prior knowledge of them), and I see no need to formulate blanket assumptions that particular societal classes cannot be productive contributors.
Pedophiles are not "particular societal classes", and it's ridiculous that you'd regard them as such.
I don't expect to convince anyone of this. In fact, I suspect a number of Wikipedians on this very mailing list would take the pedophiles side on the issue of whether or not there's "anything wrong with that".
Wow, that's entirely uncalled-for. It's disheartening that you would equate opposition to an outright ban on editing by known pedophiles with approval of pedophilia.
I don't. What I equate with a lack of willingness to judge pedophiles as "wrong" is when someone refers to a such a ban with a comment that "We should not judge people by what their opinions are, however apalling we may find them".