[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's problems

Sat May 8 22:15:20 UTC 2004

Robert wrote:

>It got even worse: In recent weeks Steve Rubenstein warned
>you all about another Jew-hater who was constantly
>vandalizing Wikipedia and clearly pushing Nazi websites.
>Yet in response, you refused to ban this person.
>Outrageously many of you said that you wanted this Nazi's
>views, and that you wanted to find a way to keep him on as
>a contributor.
>  
>
Perhaps you missed it, but Paul Vogel was banned for a year.

As far as banning people for racist views goes, I don't think we can do 
that.  We can't ban people for *any* particular viewpoints.  Saying "we 
don't ban people for their beliefs, except racism, we make an exception 
for that one" is kind of odd.  What about other objectionable beliefs?  
Should we ban Satanists?  A lot of people find Satanism as objectionable 
as racism.  What about Stalinists?  There's too many ways to be offended.

Removing inappropriate material that is out of context and improperly 
labeled is of course okay, especially if it's external links (since our 
primary business is not a web directory).  And banning people for 
repeatedly inserting links all over the place and refusing to stop is 
okay too.  So we did end up banning him because of his personal attacks, 
vandalism, and general unwillingness to work with others.

-Mark