[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is not a dictionary (was: Re: Old Wikipedia backups discovered)

[Stephanie Daugherty]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:54 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:

>
> Quoted every time we've had a policy discussion regarding material that
> was inappropriate for one reason or another. If you are getting a divorce
> and want to describe your wife's sexual behavior in detail Wikipedia is
> censored. If you want to include current troop movements Wikipedia is
> censored. Or unload an child pornography image. Examples go on and on.
>
> Essentially all it means is that if extremely offensive or inappropriate
> material has been widely published we can't keep it out of Wikipedia.
>
> "Not censored" is about just that, it doesn't mean we throw out other
> content policies, it means that we don't remove offensive material simply
> for the sake of it's offensiveness. Other policies that call for removal of
> material such as legal requirements to do so, BLP, notability, reliable
> sources, still apply. Good taste, and encyclopedic nature generally should
> still apply. The reason "not censored" even exists is to make sure that
> censorship doesn't trump writing an encyclopedia, not so that people can go
> out of their way to be offensive. As an example, an article about breast
> cancer may very well have pictures of breasts in a medical context. Those
> images are inherently encyclopedic in nature - "not censored" is meant to
> give us firm ground to stand on when someone cries foul over those images.
> or any other encyclopedic content.
>