[WikiEN-l] Re: Writing about sexual topics responsibly is not censorship

Mon Feb 14 01:53:08 UTC 2005

Nicholas Knight:

I don't see anything wrong with "an encyclopedia" having such a blanket 
policy, either.  On the other hand, I do have a problem with the idea 
that my favorite encyclopedia might suddenly become less informative due 
to strict implementation of a policy enforcing cultural taboos that 
interfere with the ability to provide useful, factual, relevant 
information.  As such, I don't think I can in good conscience support 
such a policy for Wikipedia.  One of the problems with "blanket" 
policies like that is that they tend to cover good things as well as bad.

If it's pertinent and not gratuitous, I don't tend to have a problem 
with it.  In cases where a substantial demographic does, it might be 
reasonable to move it off-page without removing it entirely, if some 
simpler visitor-controlled mechanism for "censoring" the visible content 
is not available.

Don't fool yourself, though -- claiming that something is "indecent" 
just because it's graphic is a matter of personal perspective, not of 
absolutist principles.

--
Chad

(PS:  I'm breaking with my usual standard of bottom-posting for clarity, 
here.  The reason is simply that I don't want to cut out context, but 
also don't want to force anyone to scroll a page and a half down to find 
my response.  My apologies for top-posting.)

Nicholas Knight wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
> 
>> Nicholas Knight wrote:
>>
>>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nicholas Knight said:
>>>>
>>>>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I agree that, at most, it's a nice-to-have.  But really the users
>>>>>> should be taking this issue up with the designers of their browsers,
>>>>>> not the producers of content.  http is not a push medium.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> And yet I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be able to browse
>>>>> an encyclopedia with images on and not run across disgusting crap that
>>>>> adds no value to the article whatsoever.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You should never encounter disgusting crap that adds no value to an
>>>> article.  If you find any, remove it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *points at [[Autofellatio]]*
>>
>>
>>
>> Now we've returned to the very subjective realm of trying to define 
>> "disgusting crap".  I don't know whether the image in question added 
>> value to the article.  I am largely neutral on the subject.  I am, 
>> however, extremely concerned with matters such as how we deal with the 
>> problem of potentially "disgusting crap" images because whatever 
>> mechanisms are put in place will also run the risk of getting false 
>> positives.
>>
>> Some people clearly believe your pointing constitutes a false 
>> positive.  Others do not.  A reasonable mechanism (whether technical 
>> or a matter of policy) for sorting the issue out would be desirable, 
>> here.
> 
> 
> I see nothing wrong with an encyclopedia having a blanket policy that 
> sexually explicit photographs not be displayed in articles. You can 
> argue relativism, subjectiveness, and "censorship" all you want, we both 
> know it's crap. We're here to provide an educational resource. Inlined 
> explicit photographs of sex acts as a whole do little to educate that a 
> line drawing wouldn't do, and only turn people off to Wikipedia as an 
> educational resource. Crap like the autofellatio image is even worse.