Daniel-
I also imagine that different Wikipedia language
versions will come up with
whatever policies best fit them.
That would mean giving up on the idea that there is a neutral point of
view, and instead succumbing to local cultural biases. In the case of
the English Wikipedia in particular, this would be highly regrettable,
as it is used as a source in many different cultures with strongly
varying values, but the majority of editors (and hence voters in such
decision processes) are probably American and British. The other
argument against this practice is that it might reinforce and spread
values which are harmful. It is not our mission to establish standards
of normality in either direction.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying offensiveness should not be taken
into account at all. The "default view" of Wikipedia could hide certain
images which are considered offensive by the vast majority of editors.
But our real goal should be to make the decision what is displayed an
individual one, rather than a community choice that is imposed on the
reader. We could also, on the request of schools and libraries,
associate certain IP addresses with certain filter settings. Ideally,
this would just be a switch in stylesheets and not affect the caching of
the article pages.
Regards,
Erik