[Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for Potentially-Objectionable Content

[Ryan Kaldari]

On 7/24/10 9:45 PM, Milos Rancic wrote:
> In other words "cultural context" is usually just an
> excuse for POV pushing of various kinds.
>
>    
Actually, I think the opposite is true. Right now we impose our 
arbitrary Western moral standards on the rest of the world, and because 
those standards are our own, they are transparent to us. For example, we 
are very sensitive to issues of privacy and child pornography, but not 
to issues of religious sensitivity or violence for example. I'm 
definitely a supporter of "no censorship" (I founded WikiProject 
Wikipedians Against Censorship), but I'm under no illusions that we 
don't have our own "cultural context". I also don't think offering users 
and/or projects the ability to implement filtering equals censorship. No 
one complains about Flickr or Google being "censored" just because they 
offer filtering. Frankly, we're already filtering content, even on 
en.wiki, but only according to a "default" Western/American POV. We use 
line drawings instead of photos in articles on sex positions. We toned 
down the explicitness of the image we used to illustrate Lolicon. We 
tend to avoid putting porn, swastikas, and photos of dead bodies on the 
Main Page. In our view, this is simple editorial judgement. But other 
cultures could view this as POV-pushing just as much as we view efforts 
to filter religiously-offensive imagery as POV-pushing. So let's not kid 
ourselves. We have our own cultural biases and standards (which is not 
necessarily a bad thing). We don't have to argue that the sky is falling 
just because people are asking that their own cultural standards be 
accommodated in some way. IMO, filtering technology (if implemented 
correctly) is actually a good thing for those of us who want to keep 
Wikipedia uncensored. By letting people adapt Wikipedia to their own 
particular uses, they don't have to impose their POV on the rest of us.

Ryan Kaldari