[WikiEN-l] Re: Troubled

Wed May 12 09:51:16 UTC 2004

Rich wrote

--- Anthere wrote:
> 

> Fortunately, I fixed the clitoris page, otherwise,
> we had
> -> clitoris -> link -> universally considered
> offensive
> -> torture -> embedded -> considered offensive by
> some, not by others
> 
> Which I do not think is consistent with reality.
> 
It seems to me that one of the important issues is,
who is to determine what is or is not consistent with
reality? I know that some cultures/subcultures have a
much greater sensitivity to public nudity than do
others. Which culture is consistent with reality? From
which culture's point of view will the decision be
made?

NPOV concerns more than just slanted writing. It
includes such things as what cultural bias is revealed
in the presentation. Obviously, we cannot eliminate
culture bias, but we do make efforts to make
reasonable accommodations. 

------------------------------------
We could find a middle way, where pictures are not censored entirely (removed), but are displayed in a less agressive way, as soon as it appears that the pictures might be hurting a reasonable number of people. As you say, we could both suit those who do not want censorship, and those who do not want wide availability.

I do not think a "reasonable number of people" has to be 80%. 50% being offended by a picture is a *very high* number in terms of audience, and deserve attention and care from us.

Those who feel like they do not personally care for the picture to be widely visible, but who "know inside themselves" that the picture will be offensive for many, should give it attention to it as well. We are not making an encyclopedia for "us" but for "all". So what matters is not so much "our" opinion, but the way we perceive the readers opinion will be. Because we are "not" a representative sample of whom will read the encyclopedia. We should try to jump in other people pants.

What I really want to point out, is that currently, we have ways to reduce offensivity (by galleries or by direct links to images), but we are applying these options in a non consistent way, based on who is around at the time the picture is put in the article and what his "personal" opinion is.

Example : 
My personal opinion : I consider it important that human genitalia pictures are on WP. I think it not offensive at all. I would support these pictures to be on the article itself.
My social opinion : I know however, that this is offensive to some people; so I can live with these pictures being hidden behind a link if that is a way to offer more visibility to the encyclopedia.

Ie, if schools censor WP because of these pictures, I highly prefer that these pictures are less visible and WP is on school computers.

If a high school teacher wants to give a course on human rights next week to his 14 years old kids, and to do so, print the prison article as educative support for his students, I think it would be **great**. Perhaps, he won't do so, if those pictures are spread on the whole article. Do you think he will make some cut and paste of bits of the article to extract the pictures ? I do not think so. If he knows about WP, he will just run a print and make 30 copies and distribute them in the classroom.

Now, would you imagine students bringing the photocopied article home ? With the pictures ? Any idea of the parents reaction ? Any hope for the teacher not to get fired on the spot ?

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