[WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David, and Christiaan

Thu Feb 17 15:45:09 UTC 2005

Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Bill Konrad said:
>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>> Suppose we had a rule saying "no use of the word 'sparrow'".
>>
>> Now you're just being even more exagerratedly silly.
>
> Absolutely not.  I'm trying to illustrate that it is technically easier
> for a group that has a specific need for bowdlerized content to filter
> existing unbowdlerized content than to require all editors to edit to yet
> another limitation of their expression, and that instruction creep of this
> kind is both undesirable (because it limits appropriate use of certain
> words, concepts and images) and unnecessary (because only the group in
> question knows at any given time what it does and does not find acceptable
> to it).

Well, I do not find your arguments convincing. I am in agreement with 
several others who have indicated that if we as a community cannot come to 
some agreement about not openly displaying patently offensive images, then I 
may need to reconsider how much I want to be associated with such a 
community. I mean, I love the openness and freedom of Wikipedia, but there 
are limits to most everything within the scale of human experience. I think 
we need to aim for the semi-mythical Golden Mean in which the vast majority 
of the content is acceptable to the vast majority of people, even if it 
means excluding or "bowlderizing" a tiny fraction of content at the extreme 
edges.

Bkonrad