[Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy

Tue Dec 1 05:25:52 UTC 2009

Anthony wrote:

> Right, because the only two possible solutions are to ban everyone and
> to ban no one.

Obviously not.  Likewise, we have more possible outcomes than "banning
all known pedophiles" and "banning no known pedophiles."

> > Also, please address my point that banning self-identified pedophiles
> > from editing merely entourages pedophile editors to *not* identify
> > themselves as such (thereby increasing the likelihood that problematic
> > activities will be overlooked).

> If that were true, then we wouldn't have banned any self-identified
> pedophiles, and we won't every ban another one, and this whole
> conversation is pointless.

So...you're justifying the status quo by its existence?

> Pedophile editors already have plenty of reasons to not identify
> themselves as such.

Agreed, and I doubt that many do.

> I don't think they're going to change just because what they're doing is
> bannable.  In fact, I think in the vast majority of cases these editors
> fully expect to eventually be banned

Including the ones that make no on-wiki mentions of their pedophilia?

> - the only question is how much we put up with before banning them.

How much non-wiki-related behavior we put up with?

> And looking at the edits of whatshisname, I think he fits in that
> category.  I'll bring it up again - this wasn't his first block, or even
> his first indefinite block.

And I'll once again note that his past blocks had nothing to do with
pedophilia and have no connection to this ban.

There is no dispute that the editor caused considerable on-wiki
disruption via the continual creation of numerous inappropriate
redirects and disambiguation pages, and if it had been up to me, he
probably would have been banned back then.  But he wasn't, and none of
that is remotely relevant to the matter at hand (the rationale behind
this ban and others like it).

> And according to Ryan, and I assume the Arb Com checked this, "he's been
> banned from quite a few other sites for the way he talks about his
> pedophilia (including LiveJournal for creating the 'childlove
> community')".

There is no assertion that he engaged in any comparable conduct at Wikipedia.

> Had he not been blocked indefinitely by Ryan for being a pedophile, I'm
> fairly certain he would have been blocked by someone else for some other
> reason, possibly related to pedophilia, possibly not.

I wouldn't have been a bit surprised.

> And you yourself claimed, in the paragraph directly prior to this one,
> that "if you think that any sort of pro-pedophilia editing would be
> tolerated for any length of time, you're mistaken".  So which is it?

To what pro-pedophilia editing are you referring?  The editor in
question apparently has engaged in none at Wikimedia wikis (the
context of my statement), and as soon as an administrator discovered
that he engaged in it elsewhere, he was banned.

> I see a difference between whether or not you have the right to do
> something, and whether or not it's in your best interest to do so.  When
> you asked me whether or not banning Pakistani editors is "acceptable", I
> answered based on the latter.  Had you asked whether or not the Hindi
> Wikipedia had a right to ban Pakistani editors, well, I would have
> responded with "sure, they have that right, until the WMF decides to take
> it away from them".

To be clear, you're stating that while you would regard such an act as
inappropriate, you believe that the Hindi Wikipedia currently is
empowered by the Wikimedia Foundation to ban Pakistani editors if it
so chooses.  Correct?

> > Please direct me to the discussion(s) in which consensus was reached to
> > ban all known pedophiles from editing.

> We're having one of them right now, I guess.  And so far, no one has been
> bold enough to try to overturn the de facto ban.
>
> Try unblocking one of the blocked pedophiles, if you'd like.

We have more than a de facto ban; we have some sort of ArbCom ruling.
You and I both know that it's foolhardy, futile and disruptive to defy
such a decision.

> No, pedophiles are assessed based on their past behavior as well.  If
> whatshisname didn't post all over the Internet bragging about being a
> pedophile, he never would have been banned (for being a pedophile,
> anyway).
>
> Perhaps by "behavior" you mean "on-wiki behavior".  But handcuffing
> yourself with that rule is pointless.  It treats Wikipedia like a game,
> and only promotes trolling.

I don't mean "on-wiki behavior," but I do mean "behavior directly
related to the wikis."  If, for example, someone states on a message
board that he/she intends to vandalise Wikipedia, I'm not suggesting
that this should be ignored on the technicality that it was posted
off-wiki.  Likewise, if a pedophile conveys an intention to use
Wikipedia as a venue for contacting potential victims, ban away.

You (and others) take this a step further by assuming that
self-identified pedophiles will commit on-wiki misconduct (or that the
likelihood is high enough to treat it as a certainty) and that
permanently blocking their accounts will prevent this.  Don't think
for a moment that I fail to understand that line of thinking.  I would
be lying if I claimed that the idea of blocking pedophiles on-sight
was devoid of logic.

But for reasons that I've explained, I regard such an approach as
unfair and ineffectual.  And truth be told, if I only saw it as
unfair, I wouldn't complain; I view our wikis' safety and integrity as
infinitely more important than the manner in which a
productively-editing pedophile is treated.  But because I also view
the approach as ineffectual, I see nothing to offset the unfairness.

> Why are you willing to be pragmatic when it comes to blocking e-mail, but
> not when it comes to blocking editing?

Plurium interrogationum.  Obviously, I disagree that the latter
measure is pragmatic.

> > The "hand in hand with children" wording seems to conflate physical
> > space with cyberspace.

> How about "collaborating with children"?

That's accurate, but I'm not quibbling over terminology.  As I
explained to George, my point is that some measures commonly taken in
physical space are ineffective in cyberspace.