[WikiEN-l] When goals conflict: There is no "right" for everyoneto edit Wiki

Thu Feb 24 07:57:33 UTC 2005

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:51:50 -0500, El C <el.ceeh at gmail.com> wrote:
> When one editor sees another not as human but as sub-human,
> intrinsically and irreversibly, such a dialogue, though it might find
> formal expression, is a caricature by any stretch.

El C has eloquently summed up why we ought not to allow neo-Nazis to
use Wikipedia's NPOV policy to force us to offer them a platform. A
friend of mine is the headmaster of a school in an area of London with
a large number of black and Asian students. Some students invited the
British National Party, a white supremacist/separatist party, to speak
to their debating society. The headmaster - a tolerant man who has
defended openness and free speech all his life - stepped in and banned
the speaker, the only time he has interfered in the debating society's
choice of guest. When accused of censorship, he replied that the BNP
wished that most of his students were not there, and perhaps even
wished they had not been born or that they would die; and that
therefore no meaningful dialogue or free exchange of ideas was
possible because, as El C said, one side regarded the other as less
than human.