Sascha Noyes wrote:
In your opinion this is a legitimate question. I
don't consider it legitimate
because I don't consider nudity offensive. (I have previously given the
example that if puritans consider exposure to nudity a bad thing for
children, they have to in the same vein consider a child looking at their own
unclothed body as harmful. That position is patently ridiculous. (And a sad
reflection on the influence of religious fundamentalists on societies the
world over.)
Ah, but should we add some graphic photographs to [[anus]], [[feces]],
and a variety of other subjects people perhaps wouldn't want to see
images of? After all, unless you're offended by your own bowel
movements, you can't possibly find images of feces offensive, right?
And even if you think that's alright, I'm sure I can find *some* image
you'd prefer not to look at. We have to draw the line somewhere unless
Wikipedia is just going to become
rotten.com and offend absolutely
everyone. Where we draw it is a subjective judgment.
In any case, I'm less worried about offending people per se than in
simply forcing people to see these images. What's wrong with making
them a link? Many people, myself included, do not want to see a picture
of [[penis]] inline in the article, and are quite capable of clicking on
the link if we did at some point wish to see the picture. This is not
because I am offended by penises or pictures thereof, but simply because
I consider it a private matter and don't generally wish to be accosted
by them for no good reason. And I think adding them inline adds very
little vs. "click here", so don't consider it a good reason.
Same goes for other photographs, such as [[feces]], [[car accident]],
and etc. We should have all these photographs (up to some very high
level--perhaps we shouldn't have goatse.cx photographs), but we
shouldn't have them all inline. So those who choose to see them can see
them. I don't see how this is censorship, since we are not removing the
information, or even making it hard to get.
It seems, on the contrary, that there is a small segment of people here
trying to push a POV that nudity (or at least pictures of nudity) ought
to be acceptable in public, and are resisting any efforts to compromise
in a manner that would prevent their own personal moral agenda from
being advanced.
-Mark