[WikiEN-l] Distasteful names - CrucifiedChrist

Tue Jan 28 19:53:00 UTC 2003

>From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Distasteful names - CrucifiedChrist
>Date: 27 Jan 2003 23:48:38 -0800
>
>On lun, 2003-01-27 at 22:47, Jonathan Walther wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 10:37:11PM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
> > >CG used a number of login names from the same IP, including this one.
> > >All things considered, I'd say it's a huge improvement.
> >
> > Blasphemy is as offensive as lewdness.  He is still trying to
> > deliberately provoke and offend people; hardly what I would consider a
> > "collegial spirit of mutual respect".
>
>The problem with these names is the disruption caused by other
>Wikipedians taking offense at them.
>
>"Cumguzzler" received acrid complaints within hours and generated pages
>of screed *entirely from other people debating its lack of merits*
>within a couple days of its first appearence, while "CrucifiedChrist"
>has been used for almost two weeks *without a peep* from anyone until
>today.
>
>In my book, that's a huge improvement. Now please stop feeding the
>trolls; we've got an encyclopedia to work on.
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
><< signature.asc >>

Actually, Brian, 'CrucifiedChrist' has caused offence; I received five 
private emails about it so far (as well as the Wiki Mail stuff) after I 
mentioned to someone that I thought the term unacceptable.

However people feel 'embarrassed' complaining publicly about it because 
taking offence at religious references might make them seem like far right 
religious nutters. But the people who complained aren't fanatical religious 
folk; two described themselves as non-religious, one a lapsed Roman 
Catholic. It says something about public attitudes to religion (and the 
damage done to religion by the religious right) that they felt uncomfortable 
about complaining publicly and ended up sending me a message saying 'will 
you say something?'

Personally, as another non-religious person, I think CrucifiedChrist is FAR 
MORE OFFENSIVE than Cumguzzler. The latter is merely a childish wordplay on 
sex. CrucifiedChrist is a direct, deliberate mocking of the religious 
beliefs of millions of web users and large numbers of people using Wiki. I 
have been trying to get permission to use a set of pictures for Wiki, but 
was turned down. One of the reasons was that  the person who has ownership 
of the pictures logged on to Wiki, saw references to CrucifiedChrist and 
took offence, arguing that if that is the standard of contributions and 
contributors made to Wiki, Wiki obviously isn't a serious attempt at an 
encyclopedia and he was withdrawing permission which he up to then was on 
the brink of giving. (And so we lost a set of photographs of world heads of 
state and prime ministers.)

So this is not a trivial argument, it is about the respect Wiki shows to ALL 
its contributors and ALL its users. Would it be seen as equally trivial or a 
'huge improvement' if Cumguzzler had changed his username to a term that 
mocked jewish beliefs, agnostic beliefs, feminist beliefs, or that attacked 
the culure and values of African-Americans, Hispanics, etc? NPOV should mean 
equal respect for all. That includes christians. Either EVERY name, no 
matter what the offence caused, is acceptable, or we draw a line and few 
serious websites would turn a blind eye to a contributor who deliberately 
set out to mock the beliefs of many fellow users. So again, I want to find 
out what action Wiki proposes to take about a user who in their username 
mocks the central tenet of beliefs of many people on Wiki. His action 
remains unacceptable and needs to be dealt with.

JT

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