[WikiEN-l] Editorial decisions are not the same as censorship

Tue Mar 29 15:42:32 UTC 2005

In a recent letter Anthere makes a number of good points; 
I agree with almost all of them. She offers a list of
disturbing images is given, for good purpose:

> I could go on and on forever. All this exist. 
> Most is informative.
> Some is already in Wikipedia. Most is not.
> Is it censorship NOT to put these pictures in
> Wikipedia ? YES, IT IS CENSORSHIP.

On this one point, I respectfully disagree.  Censorship is
an act which prevents the free discussion of ideas. The
term is really only meaningful when it comes to repressing
ideas due to a social, religious or political agenda.

When a newspaper, encyclopedia or other source decides not
to publish a photo because it does meet editorial
standards, that is *not* censorship by any definition of
the word. In this case we are merely excercising editorial
policy.

Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an
article on fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving
birth.  But we do *not* have photographs of men having sex
with women, impregnating them!  That is an editorial
decision, made for very good reasons.  The decision not to
publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape or
form censorship.

Now, some religious or political zealots could attempt to
delete articles on sex, fertilization and preganancy,
believing that public discussion of such topics is
immodest, or a violation of their religion or philosophy. 
*That* position would be censorship.  In this case people
are preventing us from accurately discussing a subject.  It
is the represssion of ideas for social, religious or
political purposes.

But having a group of editors, or the collective decision
of a Wiki-community, decide on appropriate images to use
has no relationship to censorship in any way.  In fact, by
definition, it is the job of encyclopedia and newspaper
contributors and editors to decide which information to
add, and which not to.

Otherwise we end up not with an encyclopedia, but just a
massive ugly image-dump and text-dump, of no encyclopedic
value.

If we start using the word "censorship" every time an image
or text isn't used, then we destroy the meaning of the
word. Let's use this term wisely.

Anthere writes:
> The english wikipedia has the entire responsability to
decide whether
> to keep it or not to keep it, but its decision should
only have a
> local impact. There is absolutely no argument to say that
it 
> should impact all other projects. The english wikipedia
has no
> authority over the other projects. It has certainly
experience
> to bring, it has plenty of good people to listen to, but
it is
> not the boss of other projects. 

I agree. Decisions made by the communal consensus of a
Wiki-community for one Wiki do not have to impact the
decisions made on another wiki.

In the end, let us remember that the entire point of our
project is to create a reliable and respected encyclopedia
that people actually USE.  If we will it with images of
explicit violence, sex, and filth, the vast majority of
people in the world will simply not use or encyclopedia. 
Then what is the point of our prject? To make ourselves
feel good?

We're here to accomplish a goal for the greater good, and
unless our project is read by many others, it can't do
that.

Sincerely,

Robert (RK)

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