[WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

[Andrew Gray]

On 31/01/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 1/31/07 6:29 AM, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com at
> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
>
> > An argument I have produced before, is that bad language and aggressiveness as
> > a routine form of interaction appeals mostly to the young and male. It happens
> > that males 20 to 25 might be the most significant group here. I think it is
> > also the case that such forms of verbal interaction and self-assertion are
> > likely to put off many other demographic groups. So civility policy is one way
> > of trying to broaden the base of contributors, or to retain people who profile
> > is not a good match to those who think freedom of speech is mostly about the
> > right to be f****** rude all the time.
>
> Interesting. You know, as I read all of the responses thus far, the one word
> that my eye and brain keep tripping over is "civility" - perhaps I am
> associating it with the word "proper" - and that's a button word for me. The
> only thing I have ever associated with the word civil is disobedience ;-).

Proper, decent, civil... it may be worth remembering that "decent
human behaviour" and "campaigns for decency" use the same words, but
mean very different moral principles :-)

A thing which I feel needs to be brought out in this discussion is
that (with a few fundamental exceptions), policies and guidelines are
*descriptive*, not *prescriptive* - our policy on Foo is effectively
saying "the community, when doing Foo, strongly favours the following
approach and may get very upset if you ignore it", rather than "the
law says Foo should be handled thusly"; it's the way the community
works, and thus the way it expects its members to work. So "civility"
isn't a rule against being nasty to people; it's a statement that "the
community expects civil behaviour", and... well, an instruction on how
not to fall out with them.

[I have not read the civility policy or guideline or whatever it is.
But I know what it needs to say - "play nice"]

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk