[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