[WikiEN-l] Offensive photos policy

Wed May 12 21:42:50 UTC 2004

Erik Moeller wrote:

>You have not offered a single plausible counter-argument on why, for  
>example, this would be any different from moving criticisms of Mother  
>Teresa to a separate page if the majority does not like to read about  
>them.
>  
>
I think the primary difference is that photos can be shocking, while 
text generally isn't.  If the [[Mother Theresa]] article *did* include 
truly shocking text, like referring to her with epithets of some sort, 
that would be a problem, but there are very few cases where an article 
can be both highly shocking and even close to neutral.  Perhaps the 
closest would be quoting someone else who used an epithet, if the quote 
happened to be relevant (perhaps quoting someone who said disparaging 
things about [[Jesus]] or [[Mohammad]] or something), but I haven't run 
across a case where anyone tried to insert such quotes.

Photos, however, are pretty easy to make shocking.  I might wish to read 
an article about [[clitoris]], for example, but find it rather difficult 
to do so when there is a photograph of a woman spreading open her 
genitalia with her fingers in the sidebar.

None of this is "shocking" meant in a conceptual sense, but in a 
visceral sense---the photos of the prisoner standing on a box with wires 
on his hands are conceptually shocking, but should obviously stay, and I 
think the criticisms of Mother Theresa are more analogous to that sort 
of shocking, if they're analogous to any sort of shocking photos.

For what it's worth, I usually find myself on the opposite side of this 
debate, as most people in the US at least take a more restrictive view 
of what should be permitted on things like TV and radio than I do.  If 
anyone were arguing we *remove* these photographs entirely, I would find 
that problematic; it's just being in-your-face about them that I find 
unnecessary.

-Mark