From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of The Cunctator
On 2/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote:
From:
wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Matt Brown
> On 2/8/06, Jay Converse <supermo0(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > This is what I'm worried about, and the precedent I was
> mentioning.
> > All of a sudden, userpages now need to be politically
> correct, or you
> > risk a block. That is, if this precedent does get set.
>
> You don't have a userpage in order to exercise any
"right" to
free
> speech, but because it helps the project; it
aids
communication and
makes
people happy. You never did have the right to say anything
you pleased there; disruptiveness has always been unacceptable.
There's nothing particularly new about that proposed finding.
A common example is that while you have a right to freedom
of speech,
you don't have the right to shout
"Fire!" in a crowded cinema.
If something on a userpage cause disruption and offence, then it
should be removed.
The reason you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema is not
because it causes disruption and offense, but because it
could cause a panicked stampede, leading to real physical harm.
IOW, disruption and offence.
Which doesn't apply to Wikipedia.
We should browbeat and harass people rather than physically smack them over
the head?
People are entirely too touchy here.
After all we are a community, and sometimes small
individual freedoms
get sacrificed for the common good.
Which, history tells us, is rarely for the common good in the
long run.
If we let the community decide what is best for it, so long as the ultimate
goal of writing an encyclopaedia remains foremost, then surely we will find
the common good?
Wikipedia is not an iron-fisted dictatorship under the heavy hand of Jimbo,
nor is it a theocracy under the all-seeing gaze of the ArbCom. Usually the
community sorts things out at street corner level and it is only the problem
cases that come to the attention of admins, the ArbCom and as a last resort,
Jimbo.
Personally, I'd prefer to see a lot more common sense and a lot fewer rules,
but I suspect that common sense doesn't scale, judging by the way things are
going here.
Pete, commoner