[WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Marc Riddell [mailto:michaeldavid86 at comcast.net]
>Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 08:11 AM
>To: 'Wiki-EN-L (new topics)'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP
>
>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

Absent the policy, things would be much nastier than they are. This is the general pattern which occurs in other venues which do not have the minimal controls we have. The result is a wild west atmosphere where tough talk rules, in a sense. We have enough of that now.