Talk:Richard Stallman/Archive 6

message: The "controversy" never materialised.  Maybe some were hoping or predicting it would snowball because it was related to a sensitive issue, but it didn't.
He made a comment, an Internet user submitted it to a widely-read user-submission site where it received a low number of votes (86 is not much on digg), where more than half of the comments were criticising the user-submission or defending Stallman's comment, and it quickly disappeared.  Another Internet user then submits it to Wikipedia on the basis that it is a notable "controversy" in Stallman's life.  Clearly it wasn't.
One positive outcome is that it has brought forward the idea of making a section on his political notes.  This would indeed be a good idea.  The topics which he talks about a lot should be mentioned.  Those include Isreal, climate change, Bush, Iraq, "Bliar", Afganistan, species depletion, and police corruption. Gronky 18:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, remove section. There must be thousands of comments, posts, articles, blog entries and Slashdot flame festivals about Stallman throughout the Internet. What makes this 3-line piece noteworthy? The fact it addresses one comment he made out of countless others, in his blog which is already full of much more controversial things than that? Or is it the fact that it's a loaded topic that can easily be used to poison a person's public image? Will we include every single Slashdot thread over whether or not Stallman prefers dogs over cats? And give it its own section? A passing comment on a blog about a lateral issue that has nothing to do with the subject's work, life or career is not notable for inclusion in a biography. And it certainly does not deserve a full section for itself. It is nothing but cherry picking spin. Capi 04:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yep.  It's annoying to have something like this instantly escalate in to a section of its own.  Mob rule.  Let's get rid of it.Rufus Sarsaparilla 04:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

text: All the top result of a google search of "voluntary pedophilia" returns link to this story, so it's pretty noteworthy. 128.100.31.172 20:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Argumentum ad Google. Whichever way Google chooses to sort its results is irrelevant to whether or not this is a noteworthy inclusion in a biography on Richard Stallman. So there was a flamefest on digg about the topic du jour, big deal. 2 days after that there was probably another flamefest about whether or not the aliens are really green. Will we include every Slashdot flamefest now too? Or will we just include the ones that are ridiculously slanted and making deliberate misrepresentations of what they are quoting? Will we add every irrelevant random comment made by Joe Sixpack regarding him too? Might as well turn this into Google then. The fact remains, this is one insignificant remark out of a pool of thousands of remarks the man has made (many of which are much more relevant and can be truly called controversial, for better or for worse). It is not related to his life, career or work. It is not notable in any way other than some people seem bent on using loaded terms to misrepresent what he truly said, and that a few randoms on some digg thread argued for a little while about it. Capi 00:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: You neglected to mention that a search for that term only returns 22 hits.  All you've discovered is that that term has almost never been used before on the www. Gronky 13:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for researching this, Gronky.  It doesn't really belong. --69.54.29.23 21:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actully Google returns 103,000 results for "voluntary pedophilia", and stallman's comment is the #1 result, so it should stay.  I mean if Series of tubes can have it's own article, there's no reason why stallman's comment can't. 70.48.249.56 03:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Again, argumentum ad Google; irrelevant. And even if it weren't so, Google most certainly does not return anywhere near 103 results for "voluntary pedophilia", let alone 103,000 (quotes, people, quotes - don't search loose words). Arguing over Google hits is besides the point. Randoms trying to capitalize on one comment which they chose to interpret in a way that defies logic do not change the fact that Wikipedia is not a soapbox. The guy said he's skeptic that Bush's forces have ordered troops to kill lots of Iraqis; will we add a whole section saying he's a Bush supporter, too? Yeah, that would make lots of sense - about as much as these supposed pedophilia comments. I'm sure there must be some Slashdot flamewar out there arguing over whether his beard is black or brown; will we mention that too? Stallman's blog has hundreds of entries, will we make a section for each of them? Or just the ones that we can twist to label him with loaded words? Wikipedia is not Google. This is not notable, it has been debated for 2 weeks or more, and the ratio of remove to not-remove comments in the above above 2 sections is like 12-to-1. I'm taking it out again. Capi 04:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time to remove it 

message: Is there a reason for the non-standard positioning of the contents? It is quite hard to find and, to my mind, not very aesthetic. However, I refrain from making any changes; maybe there actually is a reason for this. VladDogaru T C 09:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contents positioning 

message: The Überhacker article only talks about his name and that name isn't notable enough to have a stand-alone article. I even doubt it is notable enough to be on this page either but we'll see later. Lincher 13:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger of [[Überhacker]] & [[Richard Stallman]] 

message: "Stallman was born in Manhattan, New York, to Alice Lippman."... Who was his father? --Lhademmor 16:43, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  His father 

message: Please note that Len Tower's article is currently listed for deletion for the second time in a row.  Please weigh in. LossIsNotMore 15:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  gcc from Pastel to C 

message: Someone just posted that RMS has a hidden agenda. This claim is unsupported and if left on the page, needs to be supported with
facts. I really don't think that there is a hidden agenda. RMS is pretty straight forward about what his intentions are. --lile 21:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted that a while ago. --Gwern  (contribs) 23:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hidden Agenda???

message: RMS is also a hacker if there ever was one! So that should be added
back in the page. -lile 21:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Its in the first paragraph. I haven't check the page history to see when/if it  disappeared/got reverted back.  - Lentower 22:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Hacker" label removed