The General and the Particular
On the general and particular. To the one, I don't disagree with you in general. To the other, though, this particular case is a strange rhetorical question mark:
Okay, work with me here, please: Is the historical record in and of itself "punishment"?
From there a number of sticky questions arise: What is Wikipedia? Is it a web site? An encyclopedia? Are those two conditions mutually exclusive? What makes it different from, say, Britannica or Grolier? How does authorship and editorial bottlenecking at Wikipedia compare to a paper encyclopedia? How does Wikipedia differ from Encarta?
All of this orbits the underlying question of whether or not Wikipedia constitutes some form of punishment.
At present, I cannot conclude that it is.
That is a very broad, and therefore problematic standard. Again, the only road to this question is to define Wikipedia accordingly and go from there.
One difference, for instance, between Wikipedia and a paper encyclopedia is that the online encyclopedia can be larger and cover more topics. I don't ever expect to open a paper encyclopedia and find a current and accurate list of Family Guy episodes. I don't expect to scan Britannica in order to argue how many studio albums the Screaming Trees released, or to prove that Floater's "Midnight Ride" was once titled, "Silt". Nor would I expect to find a primary entry about Walter Sedlmayr.
But what does that mean to Wikipedia? To readers and contributors? To criminal perpetrators?
If people were handing out leaflets like they do for sex offenders, your argument here might carry more weight. But there is a great difference between, say, assaulting a prior offender with a baseball bat and publishing in Wikipedia the name of somebody's legally-acknowledged killer.
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Notes:
"Sex Offender's Attacker: 'I Would Do It Again'". KIRO TV. June 19, 2008. KIROTV.com. November 17, 2009. http://www.kirotv.com/news/16658145/detail.html
CheskiChips said:
There's one thing I don't like about the American justice system. Punishments follow people long after they've been repaid.
On the general and particular. To the one, I don't disagree with you in general. To the other, though, this particular case is a strange rhetorical question mark:
"Punishments follow people long after they've been repaid."
Okay, work with me here, please: Is the historical record in and of itself "punishment"?
From there a number of sticky questions arise: What is Wikipedia? Is it a web site? An encyclopedia? Are those two conditions mutually exclusive? What makes it different from, say, Britannica or Grolier? How does authorship and editorial bottlenecking at Wikipedia compare to a paper encyclopedia? How does Wikipedia differ from Encarta?
All of this orbits the underlying question of whether or not Wikipedia constitutes some form of punishment.
At present, I cannot conclude that it is.
I don't believe it should ever be removed off their records, if someone wants to look up the details of the crime they should be clear and present. However - publicly posting them in places were the common individual can find them is somewhat cruel.
That is a very broad, and therefore problematic standard. Again, the only road to this question is to define Wikipedia accordingly and go from there.
One difference, for instance, between Wikipedia and a paper encyclopedia is that the online encyclopedia can be larger and cover more topics. I don't ever expect to open a paper encyclopedia and find a current and accurate list of Family Guy episodes. I don't expect to scan Britannica in order to argue how many studio albums the Screaming Trees released, or to prove that Floater's "Midnight Ride" was once titled, "Silt". Nor would I expect to find a primary entry about Walter Sedlmayr.
But what does that mean to Wikipedia? To readers and contributors? To criminal perpetrators?
This isn't an issue of Censorship, this is an issue of common decency - if they paid for their crime do they deserve to be punished until death? - assuming they're repentant, no.
If people were handing out leaflets like they do for sex offenders, your argument here might carry more weight. But there is a great difference between, say, assaulting a prior offender with a baseball bat and publishing in Wikipedia the name of somebody's legally-acknowledged killer.
____________________
Notes:
"Sex Offender's Attacker: 'I Would Do It Again'". KIRO TV. June 19, 2008. KIROTV.com. November 17, 2009. http://www.kirotv.com/news/16658145/detail.html