[WikiEN-l] No more blocking people for who they *are*?

[Sean Barrett]

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Steve Bennett stated for the record:

> Hi all,
>   Just a thought in the wake of the pedophile thing. Could we agree
> not to ever again block people for what they are? No matter how
> disgusting, unpleasant, immoral etc. Such things always being at least
> somewhat objective, we should stick instead to only blocking people
> for actions.
> 
> In other words: If someone says, "I'm a pedophile", then by policy
> this should not be a reason to block them. If, on the other hand, they
> are trolling, and it works, then that becomes a blockable action -
> trolling.
> 
> I worry that there is a genuine slippery slope where "I am a
> pedophile" gets confused with "I am a terrorist", then "I am a member
> of Hamas" then "I support Eta"  and so on and so forth. Is it not
> better to simply say "We do not block people for statements of who
> they are or what they believe"?
> 
> Steve

Don't forget, Steve, to consider all aspects of a policy, including the
public relations concerns.  As a top-ten Web site with some minor
oopsies already on our record, we need to be careful about how eagerly
we hand the media any sort of "haven for pedophiles"-shaped club to beat
us with.

With that caveat, you will see a related statement come from our ArbComm
ruling.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | She had lost the art of conversation,
 sean at epoptic.org | but not, unfortunately, the power
                  | of speech. --George Bernard Shaw
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