[Foundation-l] Racism in Commons

Thu Mar 6 07:29:57 UTC 2008

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 05:47:44PM -0800, Robert Rohde wrote:
>  > On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au>
>  > wrote:
>  >
>  > > On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 11:36:48PM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
>  > > > On 05/03/2008, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>  > > >
>  > > > > What nobody has asked is whether these offensive cartoons on Commons
>  > > are
>  > > > >  used anywhere on any project and if so where. If any of them are not
>  > > >
>  > > >
>  > > > Commons' ambit is now wider than merely being a service project
>  > > > (though occasionally some people need reminding it is also a service
>  > > > project).
>  > >
>  > > The main ambit is to service other projects, so if these images are used
>  > > on other projects, then they should stay. However, if they are not
>  > > used, I see no reason to keep them as they offensive. Of course, we
>  > > would not go through Commons deleting all unused images.
>  > >
>  > > Brian.
>  > >
>  >
>  > You may want to review Yoni's previous deletion request:
>  > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Inappropriate_cartoons
>  >
>  > Commons overwhelmingly supported keeping these and similar items even though
>  > they are intended to be offensive.
>
>  Thanks. I had not seen it and it is indeed interesting. However, it does
>  not address the point I made. I have no question about keeping imgaes if
>  they are used on any Wikimedia Project. I just see no reason to keep
>  offensive images if they are not used. I still do not know whether the
>  images in question are used anywhere.
>
>  Brian.
>
>  > -Robert A. Rohde
>
>  --
>
>           Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au
>
>                [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
>            Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
>
>
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"Offensive" images (which is in itself a subjective judgment) should
absolutely not be purged simply due to disuse. The only images for
which that should even be considered are those which could never have
any possible educational value. Really, there are a pretty small
number of images in the world that would ever fit that description.
These images could clearly have educational value in material
regarding, for example, opposition to Israel or its policies,
opposition to Sharon himself, amateur political cartoons, political
activism, or probably other areas. This is true not only of Wikipedia
articles on such subjects, but Wikiversity courses, Wikibooks books,
so on, so on....

The aim of Commons is to collect potentially educational free media.
It is explicitly not to avoid offending anyone, as such media will
almost inevitably offend someone. This media is freely licensed and
potentially useful in educational material. Those, and only those,
should be Commons' inclusion criteria.

As to the above claims that the images are "racist", I see no racism.
Certainly material that might be offensive, but "offends me" is not
the same as "racist".

-- 
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.