[WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 25, Issue 70

[Lisa Thurston]

I second your petition in the strongest way possible Haukur.

I have no interest whatsoever in User:Amalekite, but I have a problem
with him/her being banned. If the measure of the progress of a country
is how well the people on the fringes of society are treated then the
same goes for Wikipedia.

David said Wikipedia isn't an experiment in democracy, just an
encyclopaedia. But is WP just an encyclopaedia? Isn't it a very
special and unique encyclopaedia that is the first to try to span all
state borders and all languages by coming but to the cornerstone:
NPOV.  So perhaps not democracy, but I think Wikipedia is a social
experiment of some kind and not just a resource. WP is special because
of the actual manner in which we are building the resource. Let's not
ignore that.

Considering WP has potential to beat any other resource on issue of
**neutrality** let's not do anything to compromise this. Let's not ban
a user just because of his/her opinions! That's introducing bias
straightaway. Let's ban the user if and when he or she actually *does*
something wrong, not for having beliefs we don't like!! (If I write
something opinionated and not generally accepted on another site I
don't want it to affect my "user ban case" on Wikipedia!)

Again this is not about one particular user, it's about how we deal
with all cases like this. I don't care that User:Amalekite is
apparently a neo-nazi. This is just a label and is unhelpful. A user's
actions, ie. edits, are the important thing here.

Lisa


> Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 22:40:20 -0000 (GMT)
> From: Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia
> 
> > It's not easy to do this all the while knowing that the editor (in
> > this case) personally believes that his Jewish Wikipedian colleagues
> > are sub-human.
> 
> I can only hope it's good exercise for the spirit.
> 
> 
> > Amalekite represents a tiny minority of nutcases who believe that
> > certain ethnic groups and races are not fully human and do not deserve
> > to live.
> 
> I believe this is a minority view, even within the racist movement. Other
> parts of the racism spectrum are, I fear, rather more common. Common
> enough to form a significant minority view in some cases. Exactly where on
> the spectrum User:Amalekite dwells I do not know but he did not seem to be
> pushing the idea that certain ethnic groups do not deserve to live.
> 
> I petition you: Lift your ban on the user. If he returns to editing (which
> I think is fairly unlikely) I'll undertake to babysit him and if he breaks
> any rules I'll immediately take the appropriate action.
> 
> Regards,
> Haukur