On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 3:40 PM, David Levy <lifeisunfair(a)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".