--- Rich Holton rich_holton@yahoo.com wrote: [large snip]
Again, I am NOT suggesting the elimination of the images. Only presenting them in a way that improves the "accessibility" and usability of Wikipedia.
I contend that the value of an encyclopedia comes from what it includes, not what it excludes.
Imagine if you will that you have to fight a war (a well-known theme these days), and you need weapons. You can go to the arsenal to fill up, yet you can't pick just anything you want, because the more, hummm, dangerous ones are just out of reach...
The same can be applied in the world of business, or recovery from the myriads of afflictions that plage humanity such as disease, drug/alcohol/etc abuse, prostitution, underage sex (whichever age) and violence, of even politics, ethics, and philosophy. If you want to know the real facts, you need the real facts, unfiltered, raw, in-your-face. The reader is the one who can form his or her own opinion, and will be able to do so with unbiased facts, since all of them will be readily available on the same footing.
Some may argue: But they are available, just one click away! I respond that it's like the grocery store putting candy at kids eye level and fitness magazines up for their dads and moms. The very placement of the information is suggestive to behavior (they want the kids to want candy) and thus demonstrates a bias.
We don't sell candy or magazines. If you want to make a child-friendly encyclopedia, knock yourself out. Most of us live in the real world where people struggle, suffer and die, and we need the best information available, no matter how unpalatable it may seem to some, to survive as individuals, as a specie, and advance the achievements of our civilization (especially since, cell-phones and Internet notwithstanding, we seem to have returned to the Age of Barbarians).
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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