[WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

Fri Apr 15 23:09:31 UTC 2005

On 4/15/05, Tom Haws <hawstom at sprintmail.com> wrote:
> Arkady Rose wrote:
> 
> > Joseph Osborne <josephosborne2005 at yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> We had our Familys watching the super bowl when she
> >> did that.  Also we did not take the children to see
> >> the Titanic!
> >>
> >>
> > I presume said children weren't breastfed then. Heaven forfend that
> > children should be exposed to the sight of something as normal and
> > natural as a human breast.
> >
> > Tell me, do you insist on cows' udders being covered by appropriate
> > garments before you let them look at a picture too?
> 
> Why does the tone of inquiry from this side of the issue so often turn
> mocking and taunting like this?  Does this help?
> 

I'd say this is an excellenct question. It is true that the NPOV
nature of Wikipedia means that our content will sometimes offend
people. That seems inevitable.

But I am dismayed by the complete lack of social sensitivity that I
often see displayed in the course of defending the inclusion of
content that may be offensive to some.

If your cultural background is different from that of others -- even
to the point where you believe their culture to be stupid, or
backwards, or disfunctional -- that does not make it right for you to
be openly mocking or dismissive or disrespectful. Cultural differnces
are a reality in this world, and we're working on a multi-lingual and
multi-cultural project here.

I suspect that if someone posted to this list being scornful or
mocking of, say, Muslim culture, they would get slapped down hard, and
likely be banned from the list if they persisted. Is my suspicion
wrong?

Yet we're very tolerant of this sort of culture bashing when it comes
to conservative Christian culture. You don't have to agree with
someone's culture to respect that culture and members of it. Let's all
try to show a little more respect for each other.

--Rich Holton 

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]