[WikiEN-l] Re: [[Anti-French sentiment in the United States]]

Wed May 26 12:24:20 UTC 2004

On 05/26/04  at 12:44 PM, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> said:

> French men are largely homosexual/bisexual. (According to surveys 
> American's male homosexual incidence is bigger than in French. This 
> allegation may have arisen from the fact there are no laws against 
> sodomy in France. Alternatively, it may have arisen because of 
> generalizations from the artistic or intellectual lifestyle.)

> This is serious ???

I guess this doesn't raise eyebrows because the French aren't a separate racial or ethnic group which has been the subject of systematic bigotry in recent history. Just imagine the uproar if someone where to create, for example, [[Anti-African-American sentiment in the United States]] and include a whole bunch of  unattributed opinions about "lazy, shiftless, oversexed" black people and other mindless clichés. I am NOT saying racism in the US is not a suitable encyclopedia topic; of course it is, but it would (obviously) have to be handled in a more intelligently manner than the French article.

Somtimes I get the feeling that people on Wikipedia are so terrified of appearing to "censor" anything (cf political correctness) and so obssessed with the idea that "Wikipedia is not paper" that they forget that good judgement is also called for in deciding what to include and what to leave out.

My motto: "Wikipedia is not a dumpster".

V.