On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:47 AM, George Herbert <george.herb...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:54 AM, Charles Matthews > <charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com> wrote: > > On 23/05/2011 13:35, Fred Bauder wrote: > >> This seems to combine malice and political purpose. Really it is stuff > >> that belonged on Encyclopedia Dramatica. > >> > > I take it Fred means "this article" or "this campaign": if the latter > > that's obvious enough. Given a mainstream piece of coverage such as > > > http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/17/please-do-not-google-the-name-of-this-undervalued-republican-candidate/ > > from a few days ago, I wonder if the article is really out of step. > > > > Charles > > There is a big difference between "This name-based neologism is > offensive and derogatory" and "This name-based neologism is offensive > and derogatory, but politicially and socially significant". > > It's neither our doing or fault that the neologism has become > significant in some areas of society and has had a noticeable and > noticed effect on Santorum's potential future political career. > Failing to cover it would be an error of judgement on our part, and > quite frankly if we removed it we'd probably stir up enough negative > controversy related to censorship that his name would be dragged > through the mud worse than it already has been. > > Santorum himself seems to have a decent level of understanding that > the phenomena is out of his control and not something he should try to > suppress, despite being personally offended. > > We don't exist to fix the real world - we exist to report on it > accurately. Many of the things we report on are unfortunate. An IMF > candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid, a tornado that killed 89 > plus people, a terrorist attack in Pakistan and several ongoing and > incipient wars, these are other unfortunate things that make the > neologism Santorum pale in comparison. > > Well said. It's a dirty word, it's politically motivated, but it fits all valid criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia. The only reason to delete it is personal political or cultural bias. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
