Brion, I'm puzzled at your reply, particular about your 'effective opening argument' comment. The loss of those pictures was a result of the use of a clearly offensive name, CrucifiedChrist. But that name has already caused offence to Wikipedia users and contributors. Yet you seem to be only bothered by the loss of the pictures, and not by the unambiguous offensiveness of the user nickname, which with a logic I cannot fathom, you regard as a 'huge improvement'!!!
People who complained to me said they would not complain publicly because their views would not be taken seriously. I've been sending messages back telling people that it is OK to complain, that their views will be taken as seriously, and they will be shown the same respect as everyone else. Your continuing inability to see any problem with this nickname makes me think that maybe they are right; that mocking their beliefs is OK, because religious believers are perceived as second class citizens in terms of causing offence. Poor and corny sexual puns are 'of course' offensive. But mocking someone they regard as the Son of God isn't. Is this the latest political correctness? As a non religious persion myself, I find your attitude and complete inability to see the scale of the offence caused puzzling, to put it at its politest. I thought pluralism is concerned with showing similar respect to all sides equally. Or are religious sensitivities, specifically sensitivities towards christians, less important that other sensitivities, specifically ones to do with oral sex?
Please explain why causing offensive to religious people is a 'huge improvement' on a pun on oral sex.
JT.
From: Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Distasteful names - CrucifiedChrist Date: 28 Jan 2003 13:01:37 -0800
On mar, 2003-01-28 at 11:53, james duffy wrote:
One of the reasons was that the person who has ownership of the pictures logged on to Wiki, saw references to CrucifiedChrist and took offence, arguing that if that is the standard of contributions and contributors made to Wiki, Wiki obviously isn't a serious attempt at an encyclopedia and he was withdrawing permission which he up to then was
on
the brink of giving.
That would have made a _much_ more effective opening argument -- thank you for following up with details.
Unfortunately, since Wikipedia didn't adopt a 'use your real name or post anonymously' policy, the selection of nicks, and the process of deciding what is and isn't acceptable, is always going to be arbitrary and ex post facto. (Does "Tokerboy" give the professional appearence we want to present to potential IP donors? Or even "Maveric149"?)
Cf. http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?UseRealNames on MeatballWiki.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) << signature.asc >>
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