Wikipedia:Discrimination (failed proposal)

See also: Wikimedia:Non-discrimination policy and Wikipedia:WikiProject Discrimination

Wikipedia is a multinational, multicultural encyclopedia. The English Wikipedia is both written and relied upon as a source of information by people from diverse backgrounds, identities, and life situations throughout the world. Wikipedia should not give privilege in writing and freedom of speech to some editors and readers at the expense of others, and thus Wikipedia should not tolerate discriminatory content or discussion. Likewise, users should not be able to use a valid Wikipedia policy or guideline in a discriminatory manner or to achieve a discriminatory end.

Statuses of editors and readers that should be protected from discrimination on Wikipedia include:

• Race
• Color
• National origin
• Ethnicity and culture
• Alienage, heritage, and ancestry
• Language
• Sex
• Gender identity and expression
• Sexual orientation
• Marital status, parental status, and familial status
• Age
• Disability, whether mental or physical
• Veterans' status
• Criminal victimization
• Socioeconomic class
• Level of education
• Organizational affiliations
• Religion or philosophical beliefs
• Political beliefs

Human rights

Wikipedia's discrimination policy should supersede any other Wikipedia policy and reflect the human rights that the editors and readers of Wikipedia have as human beings as described in the first article of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

— UN UDHR,

Prohibited activities

Discriminatory practices that should be banned include, but are not limited to:

1. Private discussions on talk pages that include insert discriminatory language or attitudes (words, phrases, etc). See also WP:NPA.
2. Proposals to delete articles, categories, and other Wikipedia content for discriminatory reasons
3. Using discriminatory language to harm, offend, or belittle an editor's contributions or views
4. Writing or editing articles to include a discriminatory bias against minority groups for any reason, including intending to offend the readers of such articles who are the object of such discrimination.

Permitted activities

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it should reflect knowledge, history, and contemporary realities. This means articles on racism, fascism, and so forth should exist, but it does not mean that articles should include any discriminatory bias. Articles should be written with a neutral point of view and should include only notable and verifiable information. If necessary, valid encyclopedic content that is offensive to members of minority groups should be preceded by a banner at top of the article or relevant section that informs readers about the nature of the content and warn readers that content may be harmful. However, such trigger warnings should not be used as excuses to include discriminatory content.

Cases

• Notability guidelines. Some information may be notable for some groups of people and not notable for other. For example football may not be notable for most women and articles and content about notable women, or concerning women in other way, may not be interesting and in this way notable for most of men. Also some notable content for Afro Americans may not be notable for some white Americans. Etc. In such case when a topic is concerning specifically one group, especially when it is misrepresented in Wikipedia and is a minority editors group, or it is a minority group within English speakers, or is in other way a minority group, notability issues should reflect the idea of "notability for this group" and in this case Wikipedia Discrimination policy may be used against the Notability guideline as a stronger rule.

• Dignity. Equality in dignity means no content as words, images or other should be humiliating or less dignifying in describing all people or some groups of people in their characteristics and qualities in articles or other Wikipedia content, and should not present them in non dignified way. This rule is especially enforced on pornographic images. Where image on anatomy should be used to describe biology of human beings and even of animals, especially on their reproductive systems, conventions of medical image representation and drawing should be used, rather than home made pictures of genitalia. The latest should be removed without wasting time. (See WP:NOTPORNOGRAPHY)

• Language. In English Wikipedia, content is written in English except for those cases when it is necessary such texts as poetry for example or other original cited text to be included in other language but only with giving the needed translation in English. Language rule for discrimination is not about the content of articles but about the native language spoken otherwise by the editor and such rule is only about having in mind not to discriminate editors and written by them content on base of ethnicity, language and nationality. If an editor is contributing with a low level of English he or she must be treated with respect, and when, and where needed his/her contribution should be linguistically but not in sense edited. Linguistic editing is simply a way to conform a text with grammatical rules of English it should not be a reason for content deletion or for discriminating the editor, or belittling his contributions.

• Political systems. Editors should not be positively or negatively judged on the politics of their states but on their own actions and merits.

See also

• Wikipedia:Competence is required
• Wikipedia:Harassment