[WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

Wed Apr 13 16:45:16 UTC 2005

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> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 09:27:34 -0700
> From: Tom Haws <hawstom at sprintmail.com>
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> Rick wrote:
> 
> >The community HAS resolved this non-problem.  It has
> >decided, by consensus, that there is nothing wrong
> >with having images like this.
> >
> I hope this is not so.  I don't tend to be vocal in these debates, but I 
> will feel a strong regret if the encyclopedia becomes the bulletin board 
> for such a community.

Hear him, hear him!

> I would like to suggest from my own experience a possible factor that 
> tends to consistently skew debates on these subjects.  Some of you may 
> be surprised, but most of you will sympathize with the idea that I find 
> the mere subject line of the current thread to be embarrassing and 
> discouraging to my participation.  I am very hesitant to visit, even for 
> the noblest reasons, some of the arenas where these debates have run 
> (autofel..., clit...).  I am a father, a brother, a husband, a church 
> elder, an engineer, and many other roles in which I am loathe to be 
> associated with the subjects of these debates.  I suggest that many, 
> many others like me who have opinions that there is something wrong with 
> including images like this also have various reasons to be discouraged 
> from participating in debates about the same images.  I am very sorry 
> that we are absent from such debates, but it just happens that they are 
> framed in ways and carried on in places that discourage our active 
> participation.

Not to mention the fact that anyone who simply explains that, for
whatever reason, he is made uncomfortable or inconvenienced by such
pictures or discussions is personally attacked and ridiculed for being
at best a childish person who should be spending his time at
Yahooligans, probably an advocate of oppressive censorship, and at
worst a psychotic.

Those personal attacks, especially those from privileged characters
who are absolved from censure, have a strong chilling effect on the
conversation.

-- 
 Sean Barrett     | Too low they build, who build
 sean at epoptic.com | beneath the stars. --Edward Young