--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
By masking those images which are nearly universally considered offensive, we are providing a service to our community in hiding images that they will not want to see unless they explicitly request them. If we set this threshold low - at 70%, for example - then we are trampling on the POV of 30% of our readers. But if we set it very high - 95-100% - then we are in NPOV territory.
No, we're still in POV territory, as we always will be. Your POV is that it is far better to have the image with the article, and anything different is a compromise. If we set the threshold very near either end, we are allowing a very small minority to determine where the image will be. Again, there is no way to avoid POV here. Any choice we make will be POV.
In the NPOV policy we can only treat something as a fact if it is universally considered as one by informed persons. Similarly, if a photo is accepted as offensive by all, then we can treat its offensiveness as *fact*, and act on the basis of this fact. If it is considered offensive by some, when we act on this *opinion*, we are endorsing a specific POV.
Again, I disagree with your analysis. We do not "treat something as a fact." Anything that almost anyone would consider fact can be challenged by a single user citing a single verifiable source that disagrees. The result is an accommodation to the minority view so that the minority view is at least mentioned.
As others have pointed out, such accommodation is substantially different for text than for images. Text is much more flexible than a static image. For instance, we often (usually?) place criticisms is a separate, clearly identified section of the article. Those who prefer not to read the criticism are free to do so. Even if the criticism is not well labeled, the reader can stop reading at any point and skip beyond the criticism.
Reading text is always an chosen act, (excepting some words or short phrases which take on some of the attributes of an image). But place an image in front of any normal person and they will see the image, whether they choose to or not. If there is text and graphics on a page, it is normal, if not automatic, to look at the image first.
So, I see it to be unhelpful to compare text to images in this way. They are very different in the way that they are perceived, and in the options available in presentation.
...<snip>... This doesn't mean that we have to tolerate all images everywhere, of course. It merely answers the first question, offensiveness. Other key questions are usefulness and redundancy. And we may even make the compromise of saying that if a photo's offensiveness to a large number of readers clearly outweighs its usefulness, the photo should be removed or linked to. Again, such a determination can only be made in consensus.
We can also, by consensus, agree not to let consensus rule in specific cases. Or even majority rule. That is not un-wiki. You yourself are suggesting it by requiring only 10% to determine the placement of the image (or, to state it the other way around, by requiring that 90% must object before the image is masked).
This is not a choice between POV and NPOV. It is a choice between different POV's. You want all images left on the article page unless the group that wants a particular image left there is so small as to be almost noise level. I would have all images left on the article page unless the group that wants a particular image left there falls below 70%.
Either way the image is placed -- on the article page or masked -- is still POV. In your case it reflects the POV of as little as 10% of those who vote. Would we really want the image of the militants holding Nick Berg's severed head to be plainly on the article if only 10% want it to be there?
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