Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Sam Spade: Difference between revisions
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Tony Sidaway (talk | contribs) →Concerns over personal attack templates: Clarification and further questions |
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:[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade]] 12:49, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that's a very good response, and I'm very happy with it.
But so that you understand the direction ''my'' question is coming from, I'll clarify my opinion. I have no problems with statement of personal opinions on userpages. An editor saying that he believes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Zinoviev Letter to be valid? Fine, it tells me a lot about why he makes the edits he does, and may help me to work with him. Although it may stray into advocacy, I don't think it need concern us except where it becomes, say, incitement to hatred or violence. Someone saying, for instance, "Muslims are all evil" anywhere on Wikipedia, I'd block, and I've done so for repeatedly saying that.
What concerns me is the amplifying effect of popping these statements into a cute little button that people stick on their userpage. Firstly it's a campaigning tool, enabling the systematic promotion of external political ideas through Wikipedia. Secondly it's an organizational tool. By clicking on an associated category or following the "what links here" link for the template, editors can get a list of like-minded people. Good if they're all people interested in archeology, perhaps not so good if they're all people who have said that they believe the zinoviev letter was a genuine document. I don't think you could get a cigarette paper between our opinions on self expression, so could you comment on these latter concerns, please? --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway]]|[[User talk:Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 18:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
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