You two have the moral highground on this one, I have to say. Any organised attempt to exclude or harass others based on their ideology, opinions or demographic not only makes them angrier (and in the case of racists reinforces their biases), but it also brings one right down to their level.
I'll never forget some talk show I saw once, where they had a former klansman and the black preacher who converted him with love and acceptance. That preacher had the moral highground. Any wikipedian who cares about the mission of wikipedia will accept these guys reading and editing our articles. Why? Because the diversity of information and people involved is '''bound''' to have a positive effect on them. It is bound to make them better people, if only slightly. As I always say, any progress is good progress.And thats why we are here, to help others grow.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 8/21/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is wrote:
Regardless of what the original agenda, many eventually shape up, gain in literacy, feed their curiosity about the world, grow in knowledge of subjects of interest, make themselves useful, develop some general perspective, and gain freedom from those in their orbit who dwell in vexation.
Very well put! It's important to think of people as individuals, even if they are part of fascist or racist movements. We have paedophiles contributing in good faith as was recently pointed out. I'm sure we also have nazis contributing in good faith and there's no reason to worry about that. (All homeopaths should be banned immediately, though.)
And if you read the conversations on the Stormfront message boards that have been linked to you'll see that User:Amalekite, who presents a well reasoned case and is obviously familiar with the workings of Wikipedia, does not manage to gather any new users for us. Other members of that board are content with "telling the truth about the Jews" on their own site.
This is consistent with my own attempts of recruiting new contributors. It's harder than one might think.
Regards, Haukur
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