[WikiEN-l] FW: Advisories and saying goodbye -- long

[Stevertigo]

See you if come back Julie - WP has lost a good number of concientious
objectors over the last twelve months - notably Isis, who had some sorta GNU
copyleft issue .... Weve lost other professionals as well, - largely due (I
think) to the realization that academics should find non-academic hobbies.

Anyway - for you to characterize everyone that disagrees with you - as
strawmen, Thatcherite, Ayn Rand-types, is kinda low.  We simply raise the
flag that adding protections under the waving flag of protectionism (similar
to the war on terror issue) then that itself smells like a SLIPPERY SLOPE
argument -- and some of us "radical libertarians" must be quick to raise the
issue.

I cant speak for anyone else - but personally the flag that raises with me
is implementation - how would such protocols be implemented, and would they
be in the spirit of the WP true purpose? Does WP have a "true purpose" is it
written down? If not - why?

It was only a natural consequence - that the issue be boiled down to its
essence - apologies if the debate covers unintended ground.

Happy Trails,
Steven MacGrieves


> The initial question/suggestion was to place a visible advisory that the
> wikipedia contains information that some people might find
> objectionable.  From there, there were many straw men raised about the
> POV-ness of "objectionable".  Me, I agree that lots of stuff might be
> objectionable (-- and so what?), but that there are certain (mostly)
> sexually explicit articles that your average surfer might not expect to
> find, and that even a fairly conscientious parent (or child, in Jimmy's
> case) might miss when glancing over the site for age-appropriateness (or
> even some kind of family-imposed moral or religious code -- unless KQ,
> Erik, et al. mean to suggest that parents should not be allowed any say
> in when they want their children intentionally exposed to certain
> information -- religious, political, sexual, whatever, by religious,
> atheist, or just plain
> struggling-through-something-far-too-easy-to-screw-up-and-don't-need-inp
> ut-from-strangers parents, that is).
>


> The entire conversation has been not-very-subtly changed to be one over
> filters and wikipedia-imposed censorship.  It's one that I consider to
> be total bullshit, by the way -- well-calculated deviation that blurs
> any dealing with any type of deeper social responsibility.  Some of you
> have managed to prove that Thatcherism is not dead (you know, the nice
> lady who said "there is no such thing as 'society'"?).  Nor is the
> ridiculous world of Ayn Rand, where one can pretend that one's actions
> have no wider consequences than those other people allow them to have.
> How utterly depressing that so many people who consider it important to
> write very good articles that raise awareness of the global
> interconnections of scientific, political, and religious issues (among
> others) refuse to accept that their own actions (or refusal to act)
> might also have widespread effects.


How very sad that the very people
> who consistently argue for NPOV try to use it as some kind of shield of
> non-censorship, thus forcing their own POV on others.  Please don't say
> you aren't -- there have been all too many "religion and prudery damage
> kids, and they'd learn this stuff anyway, so it might as well be right"
> arguments to deny it.  What is more NPOV than to say clearly on the main
> page that the wikipedia respects the fact that people operate under many
> different value systems, and that there may be information on the site
> that could be objectionable?
>
> Oh -- and BTW, if we stuck to "wikipedia is not a dictionary", most of
> the articles that make a lot of wikipedians squeamish would be deleted
> anyway -- my guess is that no one wants to be seen as less than
> open-minded.  Felching is certainly a dictionary-type definition.
>
> And also -- DW is dangerous in any form.  I'm almost positive he was
> also Triton, and Jacques Delson.  The time he takes from other people's
> efforts is hardly worth any contributions.  HJ also made some very good
> contributions.