User blog comment:Doc (K-)Flux(7)/Free Speech- How it applies to us, and how we should use it/@comment-24842353-20140606224541/@comment-24482474-20140607015745

Drat, I typed out a long response, and my computer fizzed out, sorry. "There are better examples of individuals and organisations who use their right to free speech publicly than the Westboro Baptist Church. The Westboro Baptist Church is a hate group. While what they do is constitutionally acceptable, that doesn't make it morally acceptable. If you want a better example of a current individual or organisation making use of their right to free speech, I'd say what Edward Snowden has done is a lot more respectable and agreeable."

As I said above, "Unfortunately, immorality is not correspondant in amount to that of unconstitutionality." I used WBC as the example, for the purpose of emphasizing that even constitutional rights are not in complete coherence with morality. I thought of using Snowden, but I decided to pick an example that all of us undoubtedly agreed on, and that is the immorality of WBC. We are divided on whether Snowden is a hero, traitor, or both.

While websites are able to establish their own rules and regulations, they aren't free to do what they want. The country in which the website is based still has governing control over the activities of the site. If the activities on the site, or what's said on the site, those performing these actions can be sued and prosecuted. An example of this would be if you wrote libel on a wiki here at Wikia, whoever you libeled could sue you and would almost certainly win the case. "Free speech" is not a defense in situations such as this as it harms another individual or group of individuals. True, however, I am referring to the areas which concern the wiki as of recent history, such as swearing, innuendo, and whatnot. Yes, libel and etc are worthy of prosecution. I should have made myself more clear, that is a fault on my part.That's a very flawed statement. You seem to forget that the United States isn't the entire continent of North America, and I can tell you're referring to the United States, not the entire continent of North America. Plus it's quite demeaning to consider the United States "better" than the continent of South America when the two are not comparable.Yeah, it is flawed. It's sarcasm. I'll assume you're joking as well. What you say in private messages is like what you say in your own home if you live in the United States. The United States judicial system doesn't know what you say in your home to someone else. The admins and chat moderators here don't know what you say in private messages. However, what you say in your home is still said in the United States, so if who you're talking to were to report to the police something you did in your home, your actions are still punishable by law. What you say in private messages is still said in this wiki's chat, therefore if the person you are private messaging reports your messages to an admin or chat moderator, they have all the right to punish you for what you did if it were in violation of the policy.I am merely providing thought questions. The whole purpose of this blog was to get the community thinking. In the next paragraph I stated, "And I'm not going to go to far into my personal opinion" since this is such a divided subject. However, I do agree with your thoughts. What you say in private messages, if it goes against a policy that the entire wiki has agreed upon, should be counted as a violation.This wiki is in no way an anarchy. It has established policies and user groups. These are two primary characteristics that are not present in an anarchy. This wiki is a combination of republic and oligarchy. It inherits characteristics of an oligarchy in that it is primarily run and maintained by a group of administrators. The republic characteristics are that the members of this community have a say in how things are done here. Examples of this are the request for rights system and the petition system. In fact, it would not be good if this wiki were like a democracy. If this wiki followed a democracy's power structure, everyone here would have administrator and bureaucrat rights. I'm sure we can agree that wouldn't end well...Correct. This wiki is in no way an anarchy.... Yet. This blog expresses my concerns of what could happen if we fall down the path of not being involved heavily with choices made regarding new policies and rules. Similar to America, which although is a Republic, is heading down that road. Let's hope for the best, eh?To correct your wording, I think you mean to say "let the community decide". Letting the public decide policies and other decisions on this wiki isn't a good idea for the community. Yes, the community should have a say in everything that goes on in it. However, I think you take for granted a lot of things the community of this wiki can do that I've seen a lot of wikis where you can't do certain things. A primary example would be the request for rights system. The fact that the community can decide on other users to earn user rights is something that many wikis don't have (though they should), so that is something I'm extremely glad to see here. I disagree with you on the statement, "Letting the public decide policies and other decisions on this wiki isn't a good idea for the community." I believe this has great potential, however, it could lead to unfortunate, darker paths. It is true we have many resources that other wikis don't, such as RFR. For this, I am grateful.

Great thoughts, great ideas.

I'm glad to get this detailed of a response, as my main goal was to make people think.

Great discussion, great points.

G'day, mate!