On 22/02/2008, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
No, no we
don't. We can decide on a case-by-case basis, by discussion
and consensus among the editors of a given article, the same way we do
for *every other editorial decision*...
We don't decide every decision on a case by case basis, we have policy
to determine more decisions. The exact details of how to apply a
policy to a given situation is determined on a case by case basis, but
there is usually a policy to apply.
But we don't have a policy for everything. We can't have a policy for
everything - we simply cannot reduce every editorial decision to a
flowchart and a statute book.
We make our own case-specific decisions all the time, on a thousand
different issues of content and layout and presentation, and there is
nothing that will kill the encyclopedia if our editors start making a
thousand and one sometimes.
I cannot think of a single time I've consulted a policy to decide how
best to incorporate an image into an article, or whether I should; if
it's then disputed, I talk to other editors and we work something out.
All show/hide would become is another tool for incorporating an image
to the best extent, another factor in the subtle editorial decision on
how to construct the page.
It becomes a lot less threatening if we stop thinking of it as a
once-off concession and consider it as an unusual special case, like -
oh, I don't know, having text in columns. It'd look silly most of the
time, but sometimes we find that functionality improves the article.
If you add show/hide tags to [[Muhammad]], how long do
you think it
will take for the edit war to start on [[Clitoris]]? I'd give it about
3 hours...
Let them, I say. Our editorial quality will not be ruined if articles
are structured in such a way that you have to click a button to see a
photograph of a clitoris on [[Clitoris]] - nor will it be ruined if
you have to click a button to see a photograph of a jackdaw on
[[Corvus monedula]], not that I can see anyone caring about that.
(Made to look a little sillier, mind you, but then we do plenty of
that already!)
Common sense will stop it being applied grossly inappropriately; I can
trust our community on that.
Our fundamental guiding principle is that people can reach consensus
on everything, can work together and produce a result, if we give them
the encouragement to do so and a framework in which that's expected.
Saying we don't trust people to reach consensus on applying a tool if
we let them start using it... well, if we used that logic every time
we allowed people to do things, we'd never have had a wiki. And if it
all goes horribly wrong, well, we can get together and decide not to
use it in future.
But say we do have such a tag on [[Clitoris]]. Why would this be
inherently a bad thing? There are no shortage of perfectly legitimate
reasons a sizable subset of readers (& editors) would not want an
immediately visible image on the article, which have nothing to do
with prurience or a desire for censorship!
Indeed, the reasons are a lot more justifiable to the general
population than the Muhammad ones. The phrases "public computer rooms"
and "embarrassment" should explain a lot of them...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk