On 5/31/06, Raphael Wegmann raphael@psi.co.at wrote:
Yes, there have been polls in early February in which a strong supermajority made that decision.
Yes, I am listening to you, but you fail to explain, why you consider the removal of a religious insult vandalism. I've already explained many times, why the (re)moval of the cartoons is *not* a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia. Instead, altering the display characteristics of the cartoons would indeed increase the quality of the article, because it would invite editors who feel insulted by the cartoons to add valuable information regarding their side on this controversy.
I'd like to add beforehand, that changes even if they'd be opposed by *everyone else*, do not constitute vandalism according to [[WP:VANDAL]].
<snip>
Okay, I'll do my best at explaining how I see the situation. The WP community has the goal of creating an encyclopedia. As an encyclopedia, it is our job to accurately describe and explain certain issues. In order to determine the best way to explain or describe an issue, we use consensus (i.e. supermajority... not democracy). In this particular instance, the community decided that the best way to explain or describe the issue is to show the actual images being discussed. Images are an essential part of WP, as they say, a picture says a thousand words (probably more). Therefore for a particular topic, images can be very useful, no? So since the community has decided that the images improve our ability to explain or describe the topic, the removal of the images reduces our ability to explain or describe the topic, thus being detrimental to the encyclopedia.
We understand people may be offended. We would be heartless to not "get it" on this point. But should we remove every image anyone finds offensive? This is a serious question, not just a hypothetical. <Modified Godwin's alert> If an image of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is offensive to Jews, should we remove it?
Including the image does not "disinvite" editors who may feel offended to voice their opinion on the matter (You seem to be doing a great job). There is always the talk page (which I thank you for using), mailing list (Again, thanks), etc.
And I get that you weren't blocked for disruption. But that is what was being discussed at the time, so I thought I'd speak up. Thanks, my friend. --LV