[WikiEN-l] How much?

Wed Jan 14 18:41:51 UTC 2004

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 1:32 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How much?


> Jimmy-
> > The goal of our articles is to be informative, not offensive.  It
> > turns out that in most cases (penis, for example) the ways of
> > presenting the content that are offensive are also lacking in terms of
> > informativeness.  A photo "in the style of" pornography takes away
> > from our mission of informativeness, while a photo "in the style of" a
> > medical text comports with that mission.
>
> It's simply not true that a photo of a penis or vagina is not informative.
> Ironically, it is particularly informative in families where the parents
> would likely consider it offensive. It helps people to actually identify
> sexual organs and to understand the wide range in their looks and sizes
> (many people are anxious to find out whether they are "normal"). Every sex
> education book that is worth its name contains pictures of genitalia.
>
> I would also like to point out that there is near consensus for inclusion
> of links, and a slim majority for inclusion of photos (where the minority
> typically argues that not they, but mysterious "other people" might be
> offended).

    Those "other people" aren't "mysterious". Could be my gran'ma, for
example. For me, near consensus is a nice thing, and therefore links are
enough. BTW, for me, photos are not that much informative: they could be
"sexually educative". Well... Does Wikipedia intends to be "educative"?
(Politically "educative"? Morally "educative"? Religiously "educative"? I
guess that it could be hard to find a consensus on how to be "educative"
those ways.)