On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 10:44 PM, J.L.W.S. The Special One
<hildanknight(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think most participating in the discussion on this
mailing list do not
hold that attitude, thankfully. But I do see quite a few "ZOMG
CENSORSHIP!"-like comments on IRC and AN. On IRC, an American actually did
say something like "If the rest of the world want to censor, screw the rest
of the world".
Many Americans feel very strongly about censorship, I wouldn't take
this as an affront really. Even the ones that say stupid things like
"screw the rest of the world" are probably talking more out of
frustration than anything else. For most americans, when they know
that other places are censoring, they assume it is against the will of
the people, that may or may not be true, but it does change how they
interact with the situation.
While I agree with Gregory, it's not as black and white as caring
about British editing vs stopping censorship. If it were that simple
though, I think a great many americans would say stopping censorship
is more important than having British users edit Wikipedia if it means
that the censorship will end, and they can edit again uncensored.
This is not really a double standard, it's just a difference in
values. If the state I lived in, say, started censoring things on the
web I would *want* wikipedia to block access completely in order to
cause people the most interruption until the censorship stopped. I
would also want there to be protests in the streets. When many
americans see censorship in other areas they almost assume that is
their opinion too, when it might not be.
Judson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion