On 6/25/06, Zero megamanzero521@yahoo.com wrote:
To whom's decision...? It is censorship. It thrives upon the ideal of a person perhaps not engaging in the action by merit of another group selectively in the belief they think it might be "cover-worthy", which is never the case in any encyclopedia.
You're totally losing me. Not only are templates that give the reader a way of opting out of some content "censorship", but encyclopaedias are never selective about their content?
In view of "not all encyclopedias are the same", you lost me there. That's an interesting comparison. I suppose you'll say then that the implementation of a template derived from the ideal of a networking site is appropriate in any encyclopedia. There's no need to differientiate; encyclopedias may focus on
And apparently also I think that any template derived from a myspace.com-like site would be appropriate at Wikipedia?
doesn't change the spirit. An encyclopedia's definition is
universal- to give
information and leave the responsibility of "handeling dangerous
information" to
the reader. When one embarks upon the knowledge pot known as an
I don't think that's true. Encyclopaedias have editors, who make all kinds of "editorial decisions". They're certainly not open-slather "all information is good information" repositories.
encyclopedia (wherever or however it may be) those lads take it upon
themselves
to make the decision to enlighten themselves in any capacity. As neutral editors, I don't see how that decision become our concern. We build an encyclopedia, not selctively dictate who might or might not view it
on a personal
whim. - Zero
How a spoiler or porn-warning template amounts to "dictating who might or might not" read our encyclopaedia is beyond me. In all likelihood, by including obscene material, we are more likely to be cutting off whole classes of readers for whom the material is too risky - school classrooms, for instance. The same applies, to a lesser extent, for spoilers - the very people most likely to read our articles on books or movies are those likely to avoid doing so out of fear of being "spoilt".
Your arguments about censorship just seem totally misplaced here.
Steve