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

Thu Feb 24 13:33:14 UTC 2005

This is a good example of our dilemma. Slimvirgin's friends says, "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" For Wikipedia purposes
this information if true would be quite valuable. In our article on the BNP
it says "The BNP denies [claims of racism] and states that many questionable
characters have been expelled from the party; it publicly condemns both
violence and racism." But those in the know are aware that they are lying
and, in power, can be expected to revert to type.

Likewise, should the Maoist rebels in Nepal come to power, those in the know
expect a bloodbath, although many of us would be happy to be proved wrong
and see a genuine people's democracy emerge. Certainly we can put no such
information in the article without a big fuss.

So it turns out that important information, indeed vital information
regarding life and death issues, is verboten, should it offend.

This reminds me of the article I once wrote, [[US invasion of Iraq]]. It
certainly created a big fuss at the time, being written 9 months before the
invasion. The fact is, it is possible to know and there is no prescience or
magic to it. Information of such a nature is derived from long standing past
behavior that has been repeated over and over and over.

But to go back to the issue. In most political cases a neo-nazi or a Maoist
or Marxist-Leninist will come on with a strong POV which they will express,
both by adding material from their peculiar intellectual mileau and stongly
opposing addition or retention of information from mainstream sources,
especially information from those familiar with the workings of their
particular faction. This was seen in the Herschelkrustovsky case with
extreme opposition to the editing of Chip Berlet (Cberlet), who is
thoroughly familiar with the twists and turns of Lyndon LaRouche.

It comes down in terms of Wikipedia policy to [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is
not]] and the particular offense: Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy
or propaganda.

To repeat, as suitably modified: Certain religions and ideologies
systematically devalue most of humanity. Wikipedia policies are a sustained
defense against that frame of mind.

Fred

> From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:57:33 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] When goals conflict: There is no "right" for
> everyoneto edit Wiki
> 
> 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.
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