[WikiEN-l] blocked for a week for these edits

Mon May 22 18:29:26 UTC 2006

Philip Welch wrote:

>On May 20, 2006, at 8:37 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>  
>
>>I just look through [[Abu Hamza al-Masri]] and find no mention of a
>>connection with the 9/11 incident.
>>    
>>
>"Hamza has publicly expressed support for al-Qaeda [and] Osama bin  
>Laden."
>
>Again, I'm not claiming he was connected to 9/11, only that he  
>supports that kind of violence. Consider:
>
>"John Doe has publicly expressed support for the Khmer Rouge [and]  
>Pol Pot."
>
>If anyone came on this listserv publicly identifying with such a John  
>Doe, I'd want to run him out for the same reason.
>
To me the issue is not whether he supports these causes, but how he does 
so.  NPOV allows a place for supporters of al-Qaeda to make their pitch 
about whatever may be good about it.  Rather than run them out it would 
be to our broad advantage if these individuals learned to express these 
views in a more constructive manner.

For someone like our Abu Hamza (who at first appearance seems to have 
indeed engaged in unacceptable editing) it would help if we had mentors 
available who are sympathetic but rationale in dealing with such points 
of view.  Perhaps they could pull aside and counsel these wilder newbies 
in techniques for constructively presenting their opinions.

Ec