On Dec 24, 2007 1:30 PM, Alex Sawczynec glasscobra15@gmail.com wrote:
[[User:Moreschi]] and I argued about this on IRC just yesterday; while he argued that allowing pro-pedophilia userboxes would allow us to more easily identify these people,
...Not if our response to people using them is insta-ban.
Earlier, Oldak Quill wrote:
"[P]aedophiles are banned from editing Wikipedia" is quite meaningless. Surely something like "those advertising themselves as paedophiles are banned from editing Wikipedia" is more actionable? We can't ban thought, only action.
The implied semantics of "...who we haven't caught yet" applies to any number of miscreant categories, from pedophiles (in thought or action) to banned trolls.
We don't have to say so explicitly. Nobody's going to laugh at us because we state something we can't strictly enforce without reading minds. A policy which rather clearly says "no" in no uncertain terms with no wiggle room is a lot easier to state and enforce than one which acknowledges the grey area.
The issue of researchers who aren't themselves pedophiles or activists for it raises one slight concern, but really, we're an Encyclopedia not a research foundation or journal. Those people probably have already figured out how to discuss the issue in research terms without causing people to believe that they're for it, because you have to do that to talk about it academically without everyone around you reacting with revulsion. If they can't make that abundantly clear on Wikipedia then their credentials are somewhat suspect...