[WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

[Marc Riddell]

Hello,

Recently the Mayor of a small town in Texas tried to pass an ordinance
making it against the law to use the ³N² word within the city limits. Fine:
$500 for each offense.

He went into this believing the ordinance¹s passage would be a slam dunk ­
it wasn¹t. The vast majority of the multiracial citizens of the town
protested to such a degree that he finally gave up and abandoned the idea.
The citizens' basic argument: what word is next?

I bring this up because, when I first came to WP, the one policy I found
most disturbing was the one concerning ³incivility². Most especially the
practice of banning (punishing) members of the WP community for using words
and phrases considered by whoever made up the policy to be ³offensive².
This, to me, made WP free in every thing but speech.

I know this issue has been touched upon several times in this Mailing List
just since I started participating in it, but I wanted to speak directly to
the policy and its practice at this time.

If a particular word or phrase offends you hit delete and move on.

What are your thoughts and feelings about this?

Marc Riddell