Sam Korn wrote:
On 2/10/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
On 8 Feb 2006 at 22:49, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/8/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
But you would impose US law even in a country where smoking weed is legal.
Given that most of our users and most significant press coverage is American, yes. That is why I drew the line there. Yes, I know it isn't perfect. But it's better than anything else I've seen.
But it's not against U.S. law to discuss, or advocate, smoking weed. After all, "High Times" magazine is published in the United States. Some of the government's drug warriors have wished they could ban all advocacy of drug use as well as the drug use itself, but so far the First Amendment has stopped them.
No. But it's bad publicity to say that we accept people who break the law and proclaim it proudly. No, it's not a legal necessity. But it is a public relations matter, and I see no reason why it should not be applied.
Can anyone think of an alternative line to draw?
Why should drawing a line be so important? Giving users the maximum flexibility to express who they are is good for everybody, because the whole world then has a transparent view of where that individual is coming from.
Nobody is even promoting that people should proclaim that they are breaking the law. It's a big leap from someone saying that he smokes weed to his proclaiing that he is breaking the law. If what people say is tantamount to admitting to breaking the law we can offer them no protection against self-incrimination.
There's something sad about a situation where PR becomes the driving force behind what we do. It's equally disturbing when a bunch of hypocrites loudly shout "IANAL", and then proceed in an attempt to enforce the law that they don't know anything about.
A better approach might be to put a disclaimer at the top of every user page saying that the page represents the views of the user alone, and that we collectively accept no responsibility for what this person says even though it may sometimes be outrageous.
Wikipedia got where it is by applying a vision boldly, not by engaging in a PR paranoia game. To be sure being bold puts the leaders on a media hotseat. The media thrive on confrontationist journalism, but respecting free speech is not a defect. They should be encouraging free speech, not manipulating interviewees into making distorted and compromising statements. Sometimes what is written or spokend does ignite the passions of the ignorant into stupid action, but if we allow that argument to hold sway we are dumbing down our efforts for the sake of pandering to our societies' lowest common denominators. We end up sacrificing NPOV because we are afraid that some of the constituents that must be balanced to achieve neutrality are too embarassing or too contentious.
Ec