Ah yes, but now you are making a claim that it is better to be
offensive to some than silly to others. Which is worth interrogating a
bit further. ;-)
I think in this discussion we've got to acknowledge that visual
imagery has the ability to quickly shock and surprise someone a lot
more than textual imagery does, first off. A picture of the Goatse man
will cause more disturbance than the most lurid Times New Roman (in
part because you can always stop reading in mid-sentence, though you
cannot stop viewing mid-image, multi-page images not considered).
If we all agree on that, then it would stand to reason that our
choices with a potentially offensive image—one in which there is a
considerable number of people who find it extremely visually
offensive—then our options seem to be between potentially issuing a
large and unpleasant shock to certain people (let us call them
"prudes") and evoking nothing in particular among the people who are
not shocked (let us call them "callous"), or between linking it and
issuing thoughts that we are silly and perhaps ridiculous among the
"callous" and evoking gratification in the "prudes."
In a cost-benefit sense, it would seem that linking would be the most
prudent thing to do—the "costs" are low (making some people think we
are silly), the "benefits" are modest (having some people thankful
they don't have to view what they don't want to without any real
hassle). Putting it inline would seem to have high "costs" (deeply
offending some people) and non-existent benefits (the people who are
not offended by it are not going to be thankful that we have displayed
it, since that is the default position).
It seems clear to me, though I welcome questioning of my definitions
and assumptions.
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:19:28 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport(a)bluebottle.com> wrote:
Fastfission said:
Of course, the advantage to a Wiki is that we can
change our content to
match the mores of the times, unlike a print object. If this was 1972
we could link to the image, and then in 1990 we could inline it. No
content lost. Nobody too confused.
I take your point, but I think a lot of people might have found it a bit
odd. We Brits had been used to seeing Vitruvian Man in the opening
credits of a weekly current affairs program for half a decade by then, so
linking the Pioneer plaque would probably have seemed a rather silly thing
to do. I think many Americans might have thought the same, too.
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