On Feb 5, 2008 7:57 AM, Ben Yates ben.louis.yates@gmail.com wrote:
That's a reasonable fear. But I'm convinced there has to be a way to assure the less extremist among the petitioners that Wikipedia is not *deliberately* trying to piss them off. I think a little bit will go a long way.
Two problems with this:
1. We are not trying to pacify people, we are trying to write an encyclopedia. To that extent what people think of us is their problem.
2. We do not censor ourselves. This includes opt-in/out mechanisms that are censorship bearing the form of a reasonable compromise. There is a reason we did not go this direction for spoiler templates, specifically because it would lead to doing exactly what we are discussing right now.
There are plenty of things I'm offended by on Wikipedia. But you know what? I've learned to stay away from them. I've learned that we're trying to do something useful here and that the presence of offensive material does not mean that someone is trying to offend me. If we start giving in to demands like this then we obviously do not care about writing a neutral encyclopedia, we do not care about topic coverage, and we sure as hell do not care if people walk all over us.
WP:NPOV, WP:NOTCENSORED. I know that policy follows actions, etc, but out of curiosity: is there any policy, guideline, or essay that supports what is being suggested here?