Chris Howie schrieb:
On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Raphael Wegmann raphael@psi.co.at wrote:
Chris Howie schrieb:
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This whole deal seems to be "I don't like something so it's your job to make sure I don't see it." No. If you don't like something then it's *your* job.
No, the whole deal seems to be whether we show a minimum of respect to our readers who happen to have a certain religious belief.
I'm all for respect, but I'm not for allowing groups to demand content changes (or even meta-content changes as we are discussing). If we make the change this time that will set a very dangerous precedent.
Dangerous? Because it could make WP more likable for prude readers, if it helps them to avoid nudity in the future?
Honestly I don't care if they do or if they don't stay away. But it seems to me that if they're offended by depictions of their prophet that's the simplest solution.
Do you honestly think we can write a neutral article on Muhammad, if we offend those who consider him to be a prophet?
Yes, I do. Our goal is not to offend people, but if people are offended by us achieving our goal, well, again that is their problem and not ours.
Your claim, that neutrality needs offense is not convincing. I'd rather say, that offense is a clear sign, that no consensus has been reached yet.
Other solutions may be disabling images in their browser or using JavaScript hacks to hide the images.
It doesn't seem fair to me, that people with a certain believe have to choose between seeing no image at all or hacking JavaScript code. What exactly is the problem with providing an easy way to either hide or show those images?
It doesn't seem fair to me that as someone who has no problem with these images I should have to deal with mechanisms that assume I don't want to see them.
Do you consider it fairer, that someone who has problems with these images has to hack JavaScript code? By contrast the "mechanism" of clicking a link is IMHO no big deal.
I have no problem with them reading or editing such articles. I have a problem with them dictating what we do with those articles, which is essentially what's happening.
Who is "them" vs "we"? Do I belong to "we" or "them"? It doesn't seem to me, that anybody is "dictating" anything or at least "they" aren't very successful.
It is my understanding that numerous emails requesting that these images be removed entirely are what has caused this entire discussion.
"Them" being Muslims who do not want us to use these images at all and "we" being Wikipedians interested in topic coverage and neutrality above all else. The groups are mutually exclusive, but are not a dichotomy. Also understand that this grouping should be viewed as my opinion and not as truth.
The groups are mutually exclusive, but are not a dichotomy? How's that? Is your opinion untrue? It might as well be, that we all (even "them") are interested in neutrality, but differ about what that means.
Not caving in the face of demands like this is not deliberatly trying to piss people off. It's simply not caving.
It can be both.
It can, but it's not. The perception of something does not make it reality.
Sometimes it does. Consider, that I want to refer to African Americans by using the N-word. Well, the roots of that word only denotes their skin color and isn't much different from calling them "blacks". So what's the big deal?
Well, it might not be a big deal for me, but it is a big deal for African Americans, because the N-word is perceived very negative for its (historic) connotations.
If we remove the images or provide some "hidden-until-you-click" mechanism then we are saying that we don't care about being encyclopedic if someone is offended enough to raise hell about it.
How does the need to click a link reduce encyclopedic-ity?
If we don't remove the images we are an insensitive anti-Islam group.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't. I'd rather we be considered insensitive than unecyclopedic, considering that we are an encyclopedia.
Shouldn't we try to quantify those consequences as well? I don't consider an additional link to result in a collapse of our encyclopedic goal. Offending the second largest religious group on this planet is rather huge, don't you think?
This all depends what kind of link we are referring to. Thus far the demand has been that we remove the images entirely, which is simply ridiculous.
Of course it is. But since we are open for reasonable arguments, we can accept a compromise, can't we?
The issue with compromising in this case is that since we are arguing sensitivity toward Muslims against Wikipedia policy, I don't see any room for compromise.
Well, I don't see any conflict. Indeed Wikipedia policies don't advertise irrelevant content, indeed they rather suggest consensus building among editors of all religious affiliations.
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Between being neutral and encyclopedic, and being sensitive toward Muslims, the only thing that exists is a bastardized encyclopedia that is still somewhat offensive to Muslims. Nobody wins.
Well, it takes a lot of ignorance to believe that an article on Muhammad, that offends those who consider him their prophet, is anywhere near neutral.
Invalid. Explain how having artistic representations of Muhammad in the Muhammad article constitutes "insulting or disparaging an editor." People choosing to be offended doesn't mean that what they are offended by is a personal attack.
Well, you can use the same argument for every personal attack in WP. People *always* choose to be offended, if the "attack" is merely a few bytes they *choose* to download.
No, you cannot. Personal attacks carry an intent to do harm and to disparage another editor. Intent is important.
You cannot tell me, that you don't know that there are probably thousands of people offended by those images. How can you insist on keeping those images without intending or accepting that offense?
And by your logic, we should seriously consider any case where anything we write offends someone. Again, I can decide that "taco" is an incredibly offensive word and demand we remove it or institute some system so I can prevent myself from seeing it. I don't see any difference at all, except there are more people involved.
There is another difference: I never demanded we remove them. Please stop polemic.
Yes, they do. OTOH WP does not display shock images even on the article about them. I don't consider that to be *censorship*.
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Ok, but seriously, I don't think there is much in common between these cases. Shock images are intended to shock and offend, and that is it. IMO it makes sense in this case to not include them in the article, though I would not object to them being present (perhaps a few paragraphs into the article).
Images of Muhammad, on the other hand, are not meant to shock or offend. That they do is beside the point.
I sense some flaw in those thoughts. They are not meant to offend, but they do? So if I don't mean to offend African Americans, I can call them N*?
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Let's face it: True censorship is simply impossible on the Internet. No information can be "hidden" forever, because it will always be available on some other URL. We have to make editorial decisions and should always consider our readers and our fellow editors, when we make them. Pushing people of faith away from an article about that faith is simply a bad idea.
IMO using JavaScript to deal with this is the best idea. It does not push editors away and it does not compromise our neutrality. It gives the readers and editors themselves the ability to control what they see without us making editorial decisions.
OK, but why make it hard for them? We can do the JavaScript coding and might as well make it easy for them to gain control.