On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 14:39:03 -0800 (PST), Rick giantsrick13@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Rick wrote:
However they are arguing that displaying Nazi
symbols,
using offensive Nazi User names and making death threats are not bannable offenses.
No, we are only arguing the first two of those.
-Mark
But when TBSDY blocked the person for making a death threat on his page, the block was reverted.
Would you allow someone to have a picture of a black person being lynched on their page?
RickK
That is a good question, and worthy of some thought.
My gut reaction is that any depiction of an actual act of murder (or attempted murder) falls outside of what is appropriate for a use page. A parallel question: Would we allow someone to have a frame from Nick Berg's murder/execution on their home page? Again, I think not.
We would allow someone to have the famous photo of a G.I. holding a pistol to a civilian's head (Viet Nam era) on their home page? The question seems to get a bit more cloudy.
Perhaps a more relevant question is: Would we allow a photo of a Ku-Klux-Klan member wearing obvious identification of membership on their home page? I think that we probably should.
For some people in the world, a US Army uniform may inspire fear or terror as real as that of any holocaust survivor. Should we deny their fear/terror? Should we ban such pictures form home pages?
How about someone in a Japanese military uniform? The Japanese are not without a history of atrocities...think of World War II. Not as widespread and systematic as what the Nazi's perpetrated, but can we deny the pain and fear of those survivors or relatives?
How about a picture of a person wearing gang colors?
None of these are intended as straw men. They are serious questions that deserve some careful thought.
I conclude (my own opinion) that, if there are to be any restrictions on pictures on user pages, they would have to be based on some well-defined principles that can be applied objectively.
-Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton