On 22/02/2008, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote:
As here. They
get less prominent use of the pictures
That does not fulfil the demand for removal of the images from Wikipedia.
I don't believe I ever said my desire was to "fulfil the demand"; my
primary concern here is the encyclopedia.
What we have done is limited the exposure of people to material they
have found offensive. We have ensured that if someone wishes to read
an article about the man they consider the Prophet - and I think we
can reasonably assume plenty do - they can do so without us forcing
them to also see what they consider to be blasphemy.
It's a reasonable step, and "it doesn't fulfil a particularly
insistent set of demands" does not make it any less reasonable as an
editorial decision.
- and, more
importantly, an indication that we are willing to think about what
we're doing rather than just be aggressive Because We Can - and we,
er, still have an encyclopaedic article just a slightly
different-looking one! Win-win.
And we have thrown away our principles to appease religious zealots -
who still won't be satisfied. Lose-Lose.
No, we haven't. There is no way this is "throwing away our principles"
unless you deliberately set out to interpret it as such. I mean, ffs,
what have we done? We've, er, restructured an article a little. How is
this a collapse of all we hold dear?
(Please note: declaring "censorship" doesn't count as an explanation
unless you explain *why* it is undeniably censorship. It should be
obvious by now that people can seriously disagree on this issue
without being frothing zealots, and I'm tired of it being stated as a
fact...)
So you
perceive the only adequate solution is to cave in to one side
or the other? I would hope the project was willing to at least *aim*
higher...
I perceive that attempting to appease the fundamentalists by a
so-called compromise solution will be the thin end of the wedge, and
there will be no chance of our resisting their further demands.
Yes, because there will be Further Demands. Because these are Evil
Foreign People, and all they want to do is Take Over Our World. I am
not sure banking on the existence of "further demands" is anything but
disturbing paranoia.
But if there are unreasonable demands, you know what? We can ignore
them. Agreeing to one request doesn't legally mandate us to agree with
all future ones, and pretending it does is just silly.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk