[Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:33:48 +0200, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> The goal may be the same, but that does not mean that the way to get
> to it, or even the further specification of that goal would be the
> same.

Could you expand on that some for me?
 
> I disagree. I am of the opinion that in several cases an article would
> improve from having certain sections of its content shortened. We're
> an encyclopedia, not a storehouse of information.

That is quite true, but motivation is a critical factor.

If you remove true facts to improve readability you have done
something valuable.

If you remove true facts because you think the information is 'bad' or
amoral, then you have caused harm.
 
> > It could also be said by extension to say that by having any policy at
> > all we are expressing distrust in our editors. This is obviously
> > silly. If the other languages are part of the same project there
> > should obviously be some ground rules that are shared in all of them.
> 
> Certainly, some ground rules should be shared. But that does not mean
> that they should always make the same choices in the same situation.

Right.
However, neutrality is a core goal of the project. So it follows that
policy related to neutrality should be among the shared ground rules.

We can not consider ourselves neutral when we exclude content based
not on improving the readability of the article but on some personal
(or by extension, cultural) ideas on what is moral and what is not
moral.
 
> In other words, once someone includes such an image, it should be kept?

If someone adds information to the wikipedia, it should not not be
removed due to a nonneutral point of view.  If it is removed as part
of the editorial process of making a better article, because the
information is more clearly presented another way... then so be it.

My example wasn't as good as I would have liked..  The reason that
your right to swing your fist ends at my nose is because our soceity
has rules about such things.  Likewise, wikipedia has rules about
neutrality. You may delete things, you may even delete things I added,
you may not use this ability to impose your values on the article.
Even if you don't speak english. :)

> Which I think is a hopelessly naive way of working. In short, it would
> stop any deletion by someone else than the original submitter.

You're correct,  I did not sufficently build out my case. I hope
you'll forgive this mistake and reconsider my position using the
clarifications I've provided here.
 
> If someone were to include a list of letters that can be found in
> Shakespeare's work on the Shakespeare article, would someone else be
> allowed to remove that?

Sure. It's not encyclopedic. Your decision to remove it isn't based on
anyones idea of if it's moral or not.


> > This all stops being an issue if we decide that such value based
> > exclusion is acceptable in the project... But that isn't the message
> > I've been receiving.
> 
> Well, I say it can be. I personally would be all for including such
> images, but I do think that when others say they don't like them, at
> some point I may have to give in.

Well that is an interesting thought, .. but if we decide that majority
rule will ultimately win: We might as well go amend the article on
evolution in the english wikipedia to say that it's a silly idea
proposed by the agents of satan. ;)  ( even though the large group of
americans that think this are underrepresented as editors, sooner or
later they will just get togeather to stuff any votes on the matter)