[WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

Wed Feb 16 17:30:04 UTC 2005

I enjoyed your essay (and you may be surprised that I agree with most
of it). Unfortunately it addresses an argument that I am not making:
i.e. that we should not include certain subject matter (though I do
think that [[Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion]] shows that we can come to
a concensus and standards for even making that difficult decision).

As to the subject matter at hand, and the compromised proposed by
those who object to the image. The question remains:
**************
Why is the compromise, i.e. "To not include the image inline but make
it accessible by a link" not considered reasonable?
**************

> But remember that not all children need this type of parenting. There
> are boys and girl prostitutes in many countries that are just 11 and
> 12. I suggest that these children, if they ever get access to
> wikipedia, will really need the information that is in the adult
> version.
> 
Hopefully if such children get access to wikipedia they will find out
about child slavery and support organizations that want to help them
them get out of bondage. And even more hopefully, wikipedia will be
part of spreading knowledge (and the associated freedom that comes
from acting on knowledge) in such a way that 11 and 12 your old
prostitutes don't exist.

> Unless we allow everything, we will just not be trusted. Want to know
> about the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades? Go to wikipedia. Want to know
> about the Rwandan Genocide? Go to wikipedia.
> Did you know that Shanghai has the largest seaport in the world? Yes,
> you guessed it, from Wikipedia.
> 
> If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
> missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
> encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.

And what of the mistrust that comes from looking up a topic you have
heard of and are not quite sure what it means (although you can guess)
and immediately seeing a very graphic image.

Jim (trodel at gmail.com) [[User:Trodel]]