On May 12, 2004, at 8:34 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
Aside from any NPOV issues with the image itself (is
it manipulative?
singled out? fake? etc.), an image is a *fact*. Nobody disputes that
Lynndie England held a prisoner in Abu Ghraib on a leash. What some
people
claim is that this particular image in this particular article should
not
be shown inline because it is offensive to them. If we do this, then we
*selectively* endorse this point of view. If we selectively show it, we
endorse the opposite view. If we show all images where there is no
consensus that they are offensive, we endorse *no* point of view.
Now you appear to argue that by doing that we make some people unhappy,
hence we violate NPOV. I'm sure the Mother Teresa article will also
make
some people unhappy, but I'm hardly willing to make them happier by
removing or hiding some inconvenient facts.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Images can be
more than facts. They can evoke, as Delirium put it, a "visceral"
response. That is beyond the academic and the factual. If a
significant number of people would like to know the *facts* about a
topic, but feel uncomfortable with seeing certain images, they
should have that opportunity. It's not a right, it's an expression
of WikiLove.
If people simply don't want to know certain *facts*, in text or in
image, I agree that reworking articles to this end is a breakdown of
NPOV. Allowing users to learn all the facts without an unwanted
visceral reaction is just playing nice and making the Wikipedia more
accessible.
Peter
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