I absolutely disagree with that. Like I said,
neutrality does not equal
moral relativism. An encyclopedia *must* decide what is and isn't
acceptable. There is no choice *except* to decide that.
Why not? What happens if we choose not to decide that?
"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." Seriously,
though, if you don't decide what to include and what not to include, then
you haven't created an encyclopedia, you've created a blob of random bits of
content.
Oh, sure, we need to decide what is acceptable in terms of notability
and verifiability, that's not the same as deciding what is morally
acceptable which is what we are talking about here.
Yes, Florida
law (although I think UK law is pretty similar in this
regard). It's not neutral, it's arbitrary, but we have no choice in
the matter.
That's exactly the point I made above, though. You have to choose. Why
choose arbitrarily?
Because we have no choice. You don't choose to obey the law, you have
to do it or you get stopped.
What legal
content under Florida law isn't acceptable? And
says who?
The beheading of Nick Berg seems to be legal under Florida law. But I don't
find it acceptable, and neither do a majority of Wikipedians. That's just
one example though. There are an infinite number of them.
Well, yes, we make an exception for things that don't significantly
add to the article, which that wouldn't. People have a pretty good
idea of what a beheading looks like, so you don't really need to show
them. I guess that is somewhat arbitrary, but there are exceptions to
every rule.
There's clearly no mens rea on the part of record
shop owners at this point.
Generally (by my understanding) mens rea means you knew what you were
doing, it doesn't require you to know that it was illegal.
Furthermore,
I
don't see how you can state unequivocally
that "no-one has ever been
charged
with any offence regarding this image". The
image clearly is illegal in
certain middle-eastern countries, isn't it?
I'll concede that point and withdraw the overly generalised remark.
No-one has been charged in either the US or the UK, which are the two
jurisdictions relevant to this discussion.
Why are those the only jurisdictions relevant? I thought the only relevant
jurisdiction was Florida.
UK law is relevant because it is UK law that has prompted the
censorship. UK law may not be relevant to our decision on whether or
not to include the image, but it is relevant to the discussion.