[Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy

[Andre Engels]

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 10:37 PM, George Herbert
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Jake Wartenberg
> <jake at jakewartenberg.com> wrote:
>> I am not talking about "pedophilia activism", but instances where the
>> individual in question is not disruptively editing.
>
> There are a wide variety of reasons to permanently block people who
> were elsewhere identified (more commonly, self-identified) as
> pedophiles but edit here apparently harmlessly, including bringing the
> project into disrepute (Jimbo's wording, I think), the latent threat
> to underage editors, that they'd have to be watched continuously to
> make sure they did not start advocating or preying on underage users.
>
> The Foundation and en.wp community policies are generally to be
> excessively tolerant of personal opinion and political and religious
> beliefs, etc.  We do not want to let one countries' social mores,
> political restrictions, civil rights restrictions limit who can
> participate and how.
>
> However, there's no country in the world where pedophilia is legal.
> It's poorly enforced in some, but there are laws against it even
> there.
>
> What it comes down to - the very presence of an editor who is known to
> be a pedophile or pedophilia advocate is disruptive to the community,
> and quite possibly damaging to it, inherently to them being who they
> are and them being open about it.

I strongly disagree. We should not judge people by what their opinions
are, however apalling we may find them, but by whether or not they are
capable and willing to edit in an NPOV manner despite their ideas and
opinions. If that brings the project in disrepute, then so be it.
Neutrality to me is important enough an aspect of Wikipedia that I am
willing to take the risk of some disrepute for it.

As for your other arguments: We should be watching _everyone_ to make
sure they don't start advocating or preying on underage users, not
just self-identified pedophile activists. In fact, I think that
pedophile advocacy is a kind of advocacy we actually have to watch
over _less_ than other kinds of advocacy. The farther away a position
is from the mainstream, the more readily advocacy for that advocacy
will be recognized even if one is not looking for it. And few opinions
are as far from the mainstream as pedophile advocacy is.

-- 
André Engels, andreengels at gmail.com