[WikiEN-l] Should Wikipedia endorse or oppose mass murder?

[Christopher Mahan]

--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Hatred leads to murder. Murder is bad. But should Wikipedia
> officially
> oppose hatred? Or mass murder?

Hatred does not necessarily lead to murder. Some people hate mildly,
and nevere kill. Others hate a lot and not kill. Yet others hate not
at all and still kill. Yet others kill accidentally. 
Murder is bad, given the definition of murder as a
non-government-allowed activity. Yet when governments commit murder,
the international community sometimes steps in. The definition of
murder is thus also iffy.

Does W oppose hatred? I don't think so. We're like journalists in a
war. We take neither side, and rather strive to give balanced and
non-point of view accounts of the events and circumstances.
 
> Given that Jimbo regularly intersperses his mailing list posts with
> terms like "WikiLove" and urges us all to communicate cordially,
> perhaps
> a time will come when Wikipedia can move from near-anarchy and/or
> benign
> dictatorship to some sort of constitutional democracy. If so, a
> statement of values may be necessary.

> Values inform rules. We can't just make up rules out of the thin
> air,
> and voting on them won't work if for no other reason than
> ballot-stuffing can't be tracked.

Indeed, until accurate and tamper-proof voting can be effected, the
primary means of discussion will remain the forum, such as this
mailing list.

 
> Yet the mainstay of Wikipedia's conflict resolution policy, indeed
> the
> only thing that allows it to be an open WIKI, is that all views are
> tolerated; i.e., no view is endorsed when there's a controversy. We
> all
> hesitate to tamper with this policy that has served us so well. But
> it
> has its weaknesses.

> * There's no way to stop people from their Holocaust-denying,
> anti-Semitic rants.
> * The debate over mass murder (i.e., "genocide") carried out by
> Communist regimes always causes deadlock via page protection and
> bannings.

I think rather that this is a strength. Just as you cannot stop the
two activities above, you cannot stop, by the same mechanism,
dissemination of information about democracy, about different
cultures, religions, opinions, knowledge of events, and views that
generally dissent from the "official" view. 
 
> I mean, if hate and murder are such problems maybe we should
> officially
> label them as "bad".

And they are, already, in the world, generally labeled as bad. 



=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/


		
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