David, I just noticed that I left a "bla" at the top of my reply to you. That wasn't a comment on your post: my e-mail editor often doesn't allow me to break the indent of the post I'm replying to. My work-around is to type some random unindented text at the top of my editor window, and then copy that down to the place where I want to insert a reply, so I can start an unindented line. That's what I did here; I just forgot to delete it before I posted.
Cheers, Andreas >________________________________ >From: Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> >To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <[email protected]> >Sent: Friday, 14 October 2011, 5:45 >Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial Content > >bla > > > >>________________________________ >>From: David Levy <[email protected]> >>To: [email protected] >>Sent: Friday, 14 October 2011, 3:52 >>Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial Content >> >>I wrote: >> >>> > In an earlier reply, I cited ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers and >>> > magazines >>> > that refuse to publish photographs of women. If this were a mainstream >>> > policy, would that make it "neutral"? >> >>Andreas Kolbe replied: >> >>> NPOV policy as written would require us to do the same, yes. >> >>The community obviously doesn't share your interpretation of said policy. >> > >It's not a question of interpretation; it is the very letter of the policy. >Due weight and neutrality are established by reliable sources. > >Now, let's look at your example: if you and I lived in a society that did not >produce reliable sources about women, and refused to publish pictures of them, >then I guess we would be unlikely to work on a wiki that > >- defines neutrality as fairly representing reliable sources without bias, >- derives its definition of due weight from the weight any topic (incl. women) >is given in reliable sources, >- requires verifiability in reliable sources for every statement made in our >wiki, >- and disallows original research. > >Instead, we would start a revolutionary wiki with a political agenda that > >- denounces the status quo, >- criticises the inhuman and pervasive bias against women, >- refuses to be bound by it, >- sets out to start a new tradition of writing about, and depicting, women, >- and vows to subvert the established system in order to create a new world. > >We would set out to be *different* from the existing sources. > >However, in our world, that is not how Wikipedia views reliable sources. >Wikipedia is not set up to be in antagonism to its sources; it is set up to be >in agreement with them. > > >Andreas > > > >> In the same way, if no reliable sources were written about women, we would >> not >> >>> be able to have articles on them. >> >>The images in question depict subjects documented by reliable sources >>(through which the images' accuracy and relevance are verifiable). >> >>Essentially, you're arguing that we're required to present information >>only in the *form* published by reliable sources. >> >>> By following sources, and describing points of view with which you >>> personally do >>> not agree, you are not affirming the correctness of these views. You are >>> simply >>> writing neutrally. >> >>Agreed. And that's what we do. We describe views. We don't adopt >>them as their own. >> >>If reliable sources deem a word objectionable and routinely censor it >>(e.g. when referring to the Twitter feed "Shit My Dad Says"), we don't >>follow suit. >> >>The same principle applies to imagery deemed objectionable. We might >>cover the controversy in our articles (depending on the context), but >>we won't suppress such content on the basis that others do. >> >>As previously discussed, this is one of many reasons why reliable >>sources might decline to include images. Fortunately, we needn't read >>their minds. As I noted, we *always* must evaluate our available >>images (the pool of which differs substantially from those of most >>publications) to gauge their illustrative value. We simply apply the >>same criteria (intended to be as objective as possible) across the >>board. >> >>> Images are content too, just like text. >> >>Precisely. And unless an image introduces information that isn't >>verifiable via our reliable sources' text, there's no material >>distinction. >> >>David Levy >> >>_______________________________________________ >>foundation-l mailing list >>[email protected] >>Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >> >> >> >_______________________________________________ >foundation-l mailing list >[email protected] >Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
