Right To Dissent

Most of Wards Wiki contributors claim at least in principle that we both recognize and honor right to dissent, and we ask everybody else (be it regular contributor, newcomer or passer by to do the same).

For another view, see Empowering Dissent.

I think earlier conflict on this topic came from inaccurate language, inaccurate use of the word right and false assumptions about online communities. A right is something you can rely upon, it is granted by some law, you can go to a court to enforce it. Obviously such rights with regard to online communities do not exist. I have no right to access this wiki, no right to publish here, dissenting or not. Right To Leave and Right To Dissent seem inaccurate to me because Right To Leave means right not to publish and Right To Dissent means right to have a dissenting opinion published. The first is trivial, for no-one can force you to act as an author. It is just a rhetoric formula. The second simply doesn't exist.

So the conflict seems to come from the need of the users to view their systems as free, open and regulated by rights ... although this is not the case. We could discuss which rights should be created: maybe then one might suggest the right to publish without being insulted and perhaps the restricted right to publish dissenting opinions under the condition that no other people are insulted. The first one seems to make sense for all online communities. The second looks more like an option for some communities and restricted to some areas (Wiki Pedia is obviously no candidate for this).

Whether human rights are cultural inventions or have some absolute existence is a theoretical question of low priority. Of course they are reasonable but that isn't sufficient for them to become accepted or respected. Not in real life and not in the wiki. Accepted isn't even enough, human rights should always become constitutional status. But this needs a community process. There will no Right To Dissent without that. -- Helmut Leitner

The [Right To Leave] is trivial, for no-one can force you to act as an author.

Not true, as one former contributor found out when he wanted to remove attribution from his contributions. An Anonymous Coward has made it his personal crusade to revert all of his edits. Due to the use of multiple proxies and this wiki's choice not to require login to edit, there has so far been found no way to prevent this kind of behavior.