[WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

[Jimmy Wales]

JAY JG wrote:
> Furthermore, he has said some pretty vile things about Wikipedians,
> admittedly on other boards; but if he had posted a list of Wikipedians
> who he thought were "niggers", I wonder if the consensus for banning him
> would be stronger.  Perhaps the word "kike" doesn't have quite the same
> taboo quality. 

For me it does.

> Personally I don't think that Nazis should be banned from Wikipedia
> simply for being Nazis/White supremacists.  In fact, there are at least
> a couple that I know of who do edit, albeit generally unsuccessfully. As
> for the rest, in my experience, the complete inability of most of them
> to abide by policy, or even think rationally and present logical
> arguments, combined with their typical belligerence, gets them quickly
> banned anyway.

I think that's right, and I re-iterate my promise to the community that
I'm more than happy to engage in the single largest mass banning without
any sort of due process at all of an entire group of Neo-Nazi users if
we determine that they actually are disrupting our work in any serious
way and that this action seems to be the only or best way of dealing
with the problem.

Wikipedia is not a democracy.

Let me explain this a bit more.  I do not believe in the "benevolent
dictator" model for Wikipedia.  Our project is of major historical
significance, and it is not appropriate for any one person to be the
benevolent dictator of all human knowledge.  Obviously.

But we have retained a 'constitutional monarchy' in our system and the
main reason for it is too _support_ and _make possible_ a very open
system in which policy is set organically by the community and
democratic processes and institutions emerge over a long period of
experimentation and consensus-building.  No one needs to be afraid that
VfD will be hijacked, and our rules turned against us.

It is not possible for 10,000 NeoNazis (if such numbers exist) to storm
into Wikipedia and take it over by subverting our organic democratic
processes because I will not allow it.  Period.  So we don't have to
overdesign those processes out of a paranoia of a hostile takeover.

But this also means that we don't need to over-react right now.  We can
wait and see.  They'll talk a big game but just review those message
boards and then look around here.  A battle of wits between Wikipedians
and Nazis?  I know who I'm betting on.

> That said, I think that banning *this particular* user was justified,
> based on the issues listed above.

I very much agree with that.  I think posting hate speech about
Wikipedia users on another site is sufficient grounds for banning,
whether our current rules say so or not.

--Jimbo