Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:47, 1 October 2006

Hey everybody. My main issue with SafeLibraries is that he is not reading policy and understanding what POV means, and why he is violating the policy. We all have POV, and we exhibit it in the articles we take interest in. For instance, I did Floyd Abrams because I respect his work for freedom of speech (a page SafeLibraries and I had an issue over). So yes, POV means I worked on Floyd Abrams and not Jay Sekulow, whose work I find objectionable. But what I do not do is choose words and phrasing--or I strive not to--that show a bias, because to do so would delegitimize my work here, which I take seriously. I may like a good turn-of-the-phrase more than I should. But that is not the same thing as using poor sources for questionably accurate "news" that, in reality, are Op-Eds that advance an agenda. This is my main issue.

My second issue is in the language that SafeLibraries uses. An argument can be made it is sophistry and exactly the sort of problem America's political culture has inflicted on us: an inability to communicate because we don't agree to use Webster's dictionary and hide the meanings of what we are really talking about. On SafeLibraries Talk page he demonstrates this himself:

Quote from SafeLibraries: "The word is just the wrong word to use. Parents keep their childen from a lot of things. It is not censorship to keep your child from running freely into the road. That's parenting. It is not censorship to use a V-chip to filter out inappropriate material for children. That's parenting. It is not censorship to keep a child from reading about inappropriate sexual activity. That's parenting."

To raise these arguments is troubling for our work here. A parent has not only a right, but a responsibility, to "censor" what their child sees. But for some reason SafeLibraries has decided "censorship" is negative and wants to just call it "parenting." How many times are we going to redefine things to make them more palatable to our various political agendas, SafeLibraries? And I can't even imagine the sanity of the fake argument that isn't there: If a parent prevents a child from seeing something they consider inappropriate, they are practicing censorship, which is bad. Can you point me to another editor who is raising this argument just because they call a spade a spade and use the word "censorship." We are all aware there are not state-sponsored threats to freedom of speech when a parent doesn't want their 10 year old watching the JUGZ channel. Anyone familiar with the work of Frank Luntz and of course Newt Gingrich's infamous GOPAC memo from 1996 (a Luntz-inspired work) entitled Language: A Key Mechanism of Control can see right through this.

For these two issues, I take exception to SafeLibraries for editing with an agenda, and not with a desire to seek out the truth. I tried to engage him on this issue, but he doesn't see why any of the above is an issue.

Thanks. --DavidShankBone 23:27, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

My main concern is just that he seems to be overtly editing wikipedia in order to be an advocate. He's actively trying to persuade, not just neutrally inform. Along the way, he's created a good bit of disruption because his edits have systemic problems of NPOV and RS.

Certainly, we all have a POV, and we sometimes edit pages related to our own biases. But in those instances, we need to be working EXTRA hard to not insert our POV. Here, I see just the opposite inclination-- on the subjects he cares most about, he's working even harder to insert his POV.

--Alecmconroy 23:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

In Reply to Safelibraries response

Safe, having read through your response, here are some comments:

• You justify your beliefs at length. You seem to be under the impression that "Being Right" is a defense against "Pushing a POV" or "Using Misplaced Pages as a Soapbox". It is not. An editor who crusades against Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan would be just as at fault as one who crusades against the ACLU. "My POV is morally correct" is no defense against pushing that POV.
• Similarly, you object to my description of your beliefs. I did not do a good job of describing them, because they are largely irrelevant.
• You object to my characterizing your beliefs as "political" on the grounds that you criticism Republicans and Democrats alike. Here, I didn't intend to say you were endorsing specific politicians, I was just using the word political in a general sense, "of or relating to your views about social relationships involving authority or power".
• You object to your early edits being mentioned. It is true, all new editors have a certain grace period to learn to get acquanted with Misplaced Pages rules. After the extensive discussion by with many different people explaining why your edits are problematic and several months, I think its fair to say that your grace period is now over. I'm certainly content to overlook errors committed in your earliest edits provided you have stopped that pattern of behavior. For example, I very consciously didn't include Vanity Links as a policy you had broken, because while you did so initially, you show no pattern of continued edits in violation of that policy. However, your unilateral insert of criticism of the organizations you oppose has continued unabated, so I'm comfortable including your earlier edits as well as your more recent ones.
• Without getting into all of the specific disputed edits, remember that I was only involved in a portion of these disputes. For the disputes I was not involved, I rely in part upon the consensus of the editors of those pages as to whether your edits violated notability or NPOV. My concern is that the edits, taken in total, show a very direct campaign to promote an agenda. So, for example, the specific criticism of the local libraries might, by themselves, be notable (although the editors of those pages generally seemed to disagree), but notable or not, they are piece of evidence showing your wikipedia-wide tendency of inserting such criticism.
• Similarly, your NEA quote isn't cited for any purpose whatosever of claiming you are anti-homosexual. As I've said, your personal beliefs really aren't relevant, so long as you can comply with "Wikpedia is not a soapbox". Right now, I'm involved in a content dispute where I'm actively helping White Nationalists have their organization covered neutrally on Misplaced Pages. The point of including this edit isn't simply to speculate about your political/religious/moral beliefs on homosexuality-- It's included because it's an edit in which you had severe problems complying with NPOV and in which you again were editing with the intent to promote your Safelibraries agenda.

Lastly, you should be aware that you have violated a very serious Misplaced Pages policy in making the following statments:

"Your attempting to tar me with a brush that says I'm homophobic or homowhatever is not appreciated, not factual, insinuates something very bad about me, and come to think of it, raises great cause for concern in my mind that it is the author of that insinuation who needs to be called on the carpet for making or implying false claims that someone is homophobic or racist or whatever. You should not be allowed to go around and make that claim as you have. In the light of all these other false claims, one can take what you say with a grain of salt. But I will say this. If any bad repercussions come my way because of this particular public false claim you have made against, if anything affects my life, my family, my job or future jobs, or anything or anyone else whatsoever, I will take all legal action necessary to defend myself."

"if you continue such attacks against me, I will immediately investigate what action I will take within Misplaced Pages and what other action I will take legally against you."

You should review Misplaced Pages:No legal threats which prohibits Misplaced Pages editors who make legal threats from editing Misplaced Pages. Since I have explained that my point in quoting your NEA edit is not to discuss your whatever beliefs you have about homosexuality but only to highlight your NPOV and Soapbox problems, I presume that you will be comfortable in retracting those threats. If, however, you feel they stand, then I expect you would be asked to cease all editing to Misplaced Pages until such time as a legal advisor or court of law can discuss defamation law with you and reassure you that no viable legal action can be taken in this circumstance.

--Alecmconroy 09:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Read further on that Legal Threats page. Similarly, slander, libel, and defamation of character are not tolerated on Misplaced Pages. If you feel Misplaced Pages content libels you or someone else, you may bring it to the attention of the Community and administrators here, or by contacting the infoteam as described on this page. In either case the offensive material should be removed quickly." You better remove the defamatory information in compliance with this policy immediately. Your typical fine threading of the semantic needle, such as in your convenient definition of "political," to explain why your defamation or libel is not defamation does not mean it is not defamation or libel. It is, and it may result in serious consequences to me. You remove that defamatory material immediately. Incidentally, your use of the Legal Threats policy against me without fully disclosing such content as I have quoted about is a further illustration of your tactic of feigned polite yet persistent harrassment of me. You remove that defamatory material immediately.

Your other arguments continue to be based on making up a false story then knocking down the false story. For example, you say "'My POV is morally correct' is no defense against pushing that POV." Yet not once, never, did I say morality had anything to do with this. Actually, I have at times said here and on my own site morality has nothing to do with what I am doing. Rather I am seeking to see the application of existing laws. It's the law. I seek the application of the law. Kids should not have access to sexually inappropriate material because it's the law that they don't. Morality wavers but the law doesn't. So your making this claim is yet another example of how you make things up about me out of whole cloth then spread that misinformation with a polite, sickening sweetness and an air of superiority like you are the great wizard of wikipedia that makes it appear as if you really have in interest in me, rather than in shutting me down.

Be that as it may, you remove that defamatory, libelous material about me immediately. --SafeLibraries 15:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)