[WikiEN-l] How much?

Wed Jan 14 04:58:27 UTC 2004

On Tuesday 13 January 2004 06:16 pm, Delirium wrote:
> 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?

That is correct. I see my feces nearly every day, and recognise that 
defecation is a normal and natural act. I am not in the least bit offended by 
the sight of feces. People study feces of animals to infer what they ate, 
etc. I don't find these people to be morally reprehensible characters because 
they are interested in feces. Similarly for anuses.

>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.

Ah, but you fail to see that even if there exist images that I would prefer 
not to look at, I would not seek them out. You make it sound as though I am 
advocating putting pictures of anuses on the cover of the encyclopedia. 
Another false assumption is that if (in the hypothetical) I prefer not to 
look at pictures of self-mutilation, I would want you to take the decision to 
remove an exemplary picture from the article [[self-mutilation]]. This is not 
the case. I would firstly not actively seek such a picture, and if I had 
stumbled upon it accidentally I would simply look away.

>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.

"Forcing" is a very strong word. Do you consider yourself "forced" to see a 
penis when you, of your own volition visit [[penis]]? And when you visit 
[[anatomy]]? Who decides what is considered "force"? Regarding linking to 
images. I did not in any way state that I oppose the idea of having images 
that are almost universally offensive located on a page that people need to 
click to view the image, with a notice that there will be eg. an image of 
self-mutilation, or of eg. a car-crash. You are misrepresenting my view in 
order to be able to attack it. Now, I don't think that it is plausible that a 
version of wikipedia that is censored in accordance with the moral doctrine 
of the puritans would include images of a penis, anus, feces, etc. with the 
limitation that they would have to be clicked and not displayed inline. Don't 
tell me that you honestly think that they would settle for that.

>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.

But in which encyclopedic article would you include the goatse.cx picture? 
Again, you are misrepresenting my position. I did not state that not having 
an image inline is censorship. Perhaps I should have been clearer on this 
point.

I have made what I believe to be a well-founded argument that we should not 
have an officially censored version of wikipedia. If people want to have a 
censored version, they should (and can) go ahead and do so. But I argue 
against integrating any censorship into either wikipedia or wikipedia 1.0. 
You have not presented any argument that censorship of wikipedia or wikipedia 
1.0 to remove potential and/or actual offensive material beside the one that 
I myself have mentioned: popularity. And this is where I find that we step 
onto a slippery slope. I know that some people consider the slippery slope 
argument a fallacy, but I shall employ it here nonetheless. If we submit to 
the censorship of the american puritans, why not to that of fundamental 
islamists? Why not to that of those who do not whish to have "God" spelled 
out? Why not to that of those who do not wish to see pictoral representations 
of deities? Then you have to start arguing that "my offense at seeing a penis 
is justified", whereas "your offense at seeing a depicition of a deity is not 
justified". 

>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.

As Erik said in his response to this point, our goal as an encyclopedia is to 
provide encyclopedic knowledge. There are probably very few people that would 
disagree that a picture of a penis adds encyclopedic knowledge to the article 
[[penis]] (otherwise why do we include pictures at all?). Note that our goal 
is not to provide a sanitised version of reality but, I repeat, to provide 
encyclopedic knowledge. The onus is therefore on the censors to justify the 
removal of encyclopedic knowledge from an encyclopedia. I have just latched 
onto the nudity issue because that seemed like a particularly relevant 
example of people trying to remove encyclopedic knowldge from an 
encyclopedia. Whether or not I find nudity offensive is not the issue - 
Although I will freely admit that I did not hesitate to point out the 
stupidity of finding nudity offensive ;-)

Best,
Sascha Noyes
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