[Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)

Tue May 11 13:06:47 UTC 2010

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 1:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org>wrote:

> The debate on this issue has been organised along predictable lines,
> dividing neatly into libertarians, moderates and conservatives.
>

[...]

> Libertarians want all information to be available to everyone. Some
> say all adults, some say children too should be included.
>

[...]

Their ideology does not allow them to consider any solution which
> involves one person making a decision on behalf of another, and all
> the reasonable solutions seem to involve some element of this.

I assume here you're talking about choosing what images to allow on the
websites.  I wouldn't call that "making a decision on behalf of another",
but I assume that's what you're referring to.  If I'm wrong, please correct
me.

Religious conservatives think that seeing certain images, or reading
> certain text, is morally dangerous. Seeing these images, they believe,
> may lead the person into sin, and thus jeopardise their eternal soul.
>

I think you've overstated that position.  Would you include Larry Sanger in
this category?  He doesn't seem to be in either of the other two.

Moderates tolerate both views. They may have a moral relativist
> outlook, or they may simply wish to avoid or defuse conflict. Thus
> they are in the unenviable position of trying to find compromises
> between two radically different ideologies, which have almost no
> common ground.
>
> On foundation-l we are divided between moderates and libertarians. The
> libertarians are more strident in their views, so the debate can seem
> one-sided at times, but there is a substantial moderate contingent,
> and I count myself among them.

Just because you've come up with two wrong positions doesn't mean that the
right position is somewhere in between, or that we should tolerate both
positions.

Where would the educator fit among these three positions?  Someone who wants
to create a learning resource, and wants to select the proper information
which they feel will maximize the educational value of that which they are
producing.  Someone who recognizes that *it is impossible* for "all
information to be available to everyone", and their job, while not one of
"making a decision on behalf of another", is more to present a decision to
others - not to compromise from what they consider to be the right decision,
but to lay it out there, for others to accept or to reject.

I wouldn't call them moderates.  They are most certainly not moral
relativist, and they have no desire to find compromises between the other
two/three terrible positions.  Let's add a fourth faction, the "educators".