[WikiEN-l] Re: troubled

Tue May 11 10:45:07 UTC 2004

> From: Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
[snippages]
> We censor pictures of clitoris on the english wikipedia.
> We censor clitoris pictures, while billion of humans on Earth have a
> clitoris, and that is something perfectly normal to have.
>
> We censor clitoris for the motive that people could be shocked.
>
> However, we do not censor pictures of torture and humiliation. Forgive
> me, but I am troubled.So, explain to me why we show shocking images of 
> human humiliation,
> while we cant display clitoris, because chaste eyes would be shocked ?

It troubles me, too.

If you want an _explanation..._ as opposed to a justification... I'd 
say that many Wikipedians seem to implicitly judge the suitability of 
pictures in Wikipedia by applying the standards of major U.S. 
newspapers. As of today, I can't imagine the Boston Globe printing a 
photograph of a clitoris; I _can_ imagine it printing a carefully 
stylized diagram of one, although I'm not sure whether they ever have. 
And they _have_ printed some of the abuse pictures, with genitalia 
blurred.

The New York Times used to, and I believe still does bear the slogan 
"All the news that's fit to print." I suspect many people follow the 
judgements of the New York TImes. I don't say this is right, I'm saying 
I think it's what many of us do.

I don't mean that newspapers specifically are arbiters; I mean that 
there is some weird cultural consensus that can be observed by watching 
what newspapers do.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net alternate: 
dpbsmith at alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/

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