Aryeh Gregor wrote: > Anyone who thinks Wikipedia isn't censored because it allows pictures > of penises is fooling himself. Wikipedia is absolutely censored from > images its editors find disgusting. Most of its editors find sexual > images just fine, and a large percentage view their suppression as > harmful, "sex-negative", based on obsolete religious practice, > whatever, so they're allowed. Look at David Goodman's message earlier > for a good example of this. Sexual images aren't allowed because > Wikipedia isn't censored, they're allowed because the predominant view > of sex among Wikipedians is that it's a recreation like any other. > > If you think Wikipedia's imagery is not censored, please explain why > [[Goatse.cx]] does not have an image of its subject matter. Such an > image would clearly fall under our fair use criteria, wouldn't it? > It's definitely essential for understanding of the material. But how > long do you think the image would last if someone added it? I'd be > surprised if no one tried to add it before, in fact. I'd also be > surprised if anyone could even upload the image without having it > speedy deleted as vandalism and getting a warning that they'd be > blocked if they did it again. > > [[Nick Berg]] is primarily known because of the beheading video > released about him, but his article chooses for some reason to depict > a still from the video where he's still alive, rather than depicting > the act of beheading itself. I would argue that the beheading part of > the video is very educational. Most people's ideas of what beheading > is like come from the movies, and are terribly inaccurate. Do you > think anyone would object if I added a picture of the knife passing > through his neck up at the top? Somehow I think so. > > Can anyone name me even *one* article where a gruesomely gory > photograph is prominently displayed, in fact? There have been edit > wars even on more moderately disgusting articles, like [[Human > feces]], with no clear "Wikipedia is not censored!" resolution. Why? > Because people don't like looking at images that are disgusting. Real > surprise, huh? But Wikipedia isn't censored, right? > > Sexual images are not kept because Wikipedia is not censored. They're > kept because the Wikipedia community thinks that people *shouldn't* > find them disgusting. This does not serve our readers well and is > definitely not neutral. We absolutely should accommodate readers who > would be viscerally disgusted by images on the site. There are people > out there, probably a billion of them or more, whose reaction to an > image of autofellatio would be comparable to their reaction to an > image of a beheading or Goatse. Saying "screw you" to all these > people rather than attempting to improve the utility of Wikipedia for > them is obnoxious, antisocial, and contrary to our mission. > > Anyone who claims that it's too hard to draw a line of what should be > censored and what shouldn't is demonstrably wrong, because Wikipedia > has done it for more than eight years, and no one seems to have even > *noticed* that the line *exists*. Trying to claim we can't censor > sexual images because it's a slippery slope is not only bad logic, but > grossly hypocritical. > > There is *no* loss in educational value if explicit sexual images are > not displayed inline. None. Prominent links can be provided for > readers who are interested. On the other hand, there is a significant > loss if parents want to stop their children from reading Wikipedia > because it contains offensive imagery. The way our mission points is > therefore clear. Are we going to try to be the best educational > resource we can be, or impose a sexually liberal ideology on all our > readers whether they like it or not?
Sorry for quoting in full, but I have to. This is the best overview of the situation I have ever read. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
