On May 23, 2006, at 1:27 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
But
wouldn't you say their espousing of these views creates a hostile
environment towards the ethnic groups they're intolerant of?
If that's the case, then they should be asked to stop it, and
perhaps forced
to do so. But you're stretching if you want to suggest that the
presence of
a white supremacist *by itself* creates a hostile environment for
any black
editors.
Not all. If we had racist editors but they provided no evidence that
they were racist, things would be fine. (Given the vast number of
editors on Wikipedia, I have to surmise that the vast majority of the
racist editors we do have fall within this category--we don't know
who they are and that makes things fine.)
The debacle caused by the admin who threatened to ban
any user of
{{user
pedophile}} demonstrated that banning for ideology or membership is
not
practical or desirable. Incivil actions or undesirable edits, yes.
But not
memberships or ideologies.
That's a good point. Then again, had Saladin1970 not made his
attitude toward the Jews clear in his edits, I would have no problem
with him. We really don't disagree on this point--it's the expression
of anti-Semitism that bothers me, not what he privately chooses to
believe.
--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch