if he posts tomorrow -- could a dev grab his IP and trace it? He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of the big four.
might be interesting to inform his employer what he gets up to during work hours.
--- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote:
if he posts tomorrow -- could a dev grab his IP and trace it? He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of the big four.
might be interesting to inform his employer what he gets up to during work hours.
What does that mean "one of the big four" ?
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Anthere wrote:
--- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote:
He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of the big four.
What does that mean "one of the big four" ?
I suspect he means one of these: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_4_accountancy_firm
see also this edit of his: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Financial_audit&oldid=907010
I saw him write in one of the summaries "I work for one of the big fat fourr", but I can't find it.
--- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote:
Anthere wrote:
--- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote:
He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of the big four.
What does that mean "one of the big four" ?
I suspect he means one of these: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_4_accountancy_firm
see also this edit of his:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Financial_audit&oldid=907010
I saw him write in one of the summaries "I work for one of the big fat fourr", but I can't find it.
ah, an accountant...right
btw, I read he was managing english, french, spanish and german... any other languages ?
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Tarquin wrote:
I saw him write in one of the summaries "I work for one of the big fat fourr", but I can't find it.
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Marymary&diff=9070... ldid=907027
(sorry if the link needs pasting back together again, I don't know how to stop that)
sannse
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Anthere wrote: | --- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote: | |>if he posts tomorrow -- could a dev grab his IP and |>trace it? |>He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of |>the big four. |> |>might be interesting to inform his employer what he |>gets up to during work hours. | | | What does that mean "one of the big four" ?
Burger King, Wendys, In'n'Out, and McDonalds.
- -- ~ Sean Barrett | One part polonium, one part beryllium. ~ sean@epoptic.com |
Anthere wrote: | --- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote: | |>if he posts tomorrow -- could a dev grab his IP and |>trace it? |>He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of |>the big four. |> |>might be interesting to inform his employer what he |>gets up to during work hours. | | | What does that mean "one of the big four" ?
One of the big four accounting firms. There were the big 5 before, but the Fall of Arthur Anderson took them down to 4. They are, in order of appearance:
KPMG
Deloitte and Touche/Komatsu
Ernst & Young
and a fourth... (dang. why can't I remember?)
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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Christopher Mahan wrote:
| What does that mean "one of the big four" ?
One of the big four accounting firms.
They are, in order of appearance:
... and a fourth... (dang. why can't I remember?)
You know, I think there's a really good encyclopedia site on the net somewhere where you can look up this sort of thing .... now if only I could remember its name .... rotfl ;-)
You know, I think there's a really good encyclopedia site on the net somewhere where you can look up this sort of thing .... now if only I could remember its name .... rotfl ;-)
you mean the same wikipedia that gave me the infamous "server not found" error a little while ago?
anyway: the culprit was PricewaterhouseCoopers, as seen in this fine resource: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/PricewaterhouseCoopers
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On Sun, 11 May 2003, tarquin wrote:
Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 10:23:45 +0100 From: tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the clitoris guy
if he posts tomorrow -- could a dev grab his IP and trace it? He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of the big four.
might be interesting to inform his employer what he gets up to during work hours.
Not that I have any fondness for "the photo troll", but that wouldn't really be much of "during work hours", especially if he's on the East Coast (I'm assuming he's American here, if anyone else wants to claim him feel free!); his first edit this weekend was the RIAA at 20:40 UTC Friday, 16:40 EDT, and the Clitoris.jpg stuff didn't get started until 21:17 UTC, 17:17 EDT. And even someone as troll-hating as myself doesn't want to go making reports to one's employer.
--- "John R. Owens" jowens.wiki@ghiapet.homeip.net wrote:
On Sun, 11 May 2003, tarquin wrote:
Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 10:23:45 +0100 From: tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the
clitoris guy
if he posts tomorrow -- could a dev grab his IP
and trace it?
He's mentioned somewhere that he works for one of
the big four.
might be interesting to inform his employer what
he gets up to during
work hours.
Not that I have any fondness for "the photo troll", but that wouldn't really be much of "during work hours", especially if he's on the East Coast (I'm assuming he's American here, if anyone else wants to claim him feel free!); his first edit this weekend was the RIAA at 20:40 UTC Friday, 16:40 EDT, and the Clitoris.jpg stuff didn't get started until 21:17 UTC, 17:17 EDT. And even someone as troll-hating as myself doesn't want to go making reports to one's employer.
Hummm
THIS IS A WARNING PLEASE, DON'T OPEN IF SENSIBLE TO EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL
Any spanish speaker to tell us whether this is free of copyright or not ???
http://www.geocities.com/genitales2000/
the top right image is John image
I think this is an encyclopedic article with pictures and drawings. Just need to put the images in media link rather than image link with a warning.
Alvaro's courtesy
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***Adding to the warning - the link goes to a page of photos of genitalia***
Hummm
THIS IS A WARNING PLEASE, DON'T OPEN IF SENSIBLE TO EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL
Any spanish speaker to tell us whether this is free of copyright or not ???
http://www.geocities.com/genitales2000/
the top right image is John image
I think this is an encyclopedic article with pictures and drawings. Just need to put the images in media link rather than image link with a warning.
Alvaro's courtesy
If they are copyright free (which would surprise me) a couple of them may be better choices than John's version. The left side images on the bottom two rows are informative without having the same "porn-like" feel of the earlier images. As Anthere said, they would still need to be linked with a warning rather than immediately visible. Personally I would still prefer a drawing, mostly for aesthetic reasons but also because I believe a drawing can be more informative in some situations.
Regards
sannse
I don't think we should have an actual photograph in this case. Just think what would be acceptable in schools (actually, a lot of wikipedia probably wouldn't be acceptable in schools, like its lack of "drugs are evil" stance, but this is much worse). I don't think photographs of genitalia belong in an encyclopedia, no matter how informative. Drawings would be a much better alternative.
sannse sannse@delphiforums.com wrote:If they are copyright free (which would surprise me) a couple of them may be better choices than John's version. The left side images on the bottom two rows are informative without having the same "porn-like" feel of the earlier images. As Anthere said, they would still need to be linked with a warning rather than immediately visible. Personally I would still prefer a drawing, mostly for aesthetic reasons but also because I believe a drawing can be more informative in some situations.
Regards
sannse
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All concerned parties, be advised of my article [[Peyronie disease]].
My view is that the Wikipedia should not contain pornography, but nudity is okay. Some people may not be cool with the idea of looking at nudity, but they have just as much right to not "Click here to see image containing nudity" as they do to avoid other places where they'd see nudity (Playboy, porno sites, etc.) Nudity is okay because it describes how things really do look. Drawings should not be considered watered down photos. They're good at showing some details that may not be apparent in photographs. Photographs on the other hand, show reality. I think both are perfectly acceptable. Understanding that certain people are sensitive to seeing nudity, we should mask it behind a link. But we are not making an encyclopedia specifically for grade schools, and we are not making an encyclopedia for people who turn red at the site of genitalia. Individuals need to exercise control of their viewing habits, and schools and parents need to be aware of what children are surfing to. That's just not our job.
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
I don't think we should have an actual photograph in this case. Just think what would be acceptable in schools (actually, a lot of wikipedia probably wouldn't be acceptable in schools, like its lack of "drugs are evil" stance, but this is much worse). I don't think photographs of genitalia belong in an encyclopedia, no matter how informative. Drawings would be a much better alternative.
*/sannse sannse@delphiforums.com/* wrote:
If they are copyright free (which would surprise me) a couple of them may be better choices than John's version. The left side images on the bottom two rows are informative without having the same "porn-like" feel of the earlier images. As Anthere said, they would still need to be linked with a warning rather than immediately visible. Personally I would still prefer a drawing, mostly for aesthetic reasons but also because I believe a drawing can be more informative in some situations.
cprompt wrote:
All concerned parties, be advised of my article [[Peyronie disease]].
My view is that the Wikipedia should not contain pornography, but nudity is okay. Some people may not be cool with the idea of looking at nudity, but they have just as much right to not "Click here to see image containing nudity" as they do to avoid other places where they'd see nudity
No problem, but the reference to "oral medication" could be ambiguous. :-P
Ec
--- cprompt cprompt@tmbg.org wrote:
All concerned parties, be advised of my article [[Peyronie disease]].
My view is that the Wikipedia should not contain pornography, but nudity is okay. Some people may not be cool with the idea of looking at nudity, but they have just as much right to not "Click here to see image containing nudity" as they do to avoid other places where they'd see nudity (Playboy, porno sites, etc.) Nudity is okay because it describes how things really do look. Drawings should not be considered watered down photos. They're good at showing some details that may not be apparent in photographs. Photographs on the other hand, show reality. I think both are perfectly acceptable. Understanding that certain people are sensitive to seeing nudity, we should mask it behind a link. But we are not making an encyclopedia specifically for grade schools, and we are not making an encyclopedia for people who turn red at the site of genitalia. Individuals need to exercise control of their viewing habits, and schools and parents need to be aware of what children are surfing to. That's just not our job.
Agreed ++.
Should make the warning more obvious though. Bold or something equivalent.
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Anthere wrote:
--- cprompt cprompt@tmbg.org wrote:
All concerned parties, be advised of my article [[Peyronie disease]].
My view is that the Wikipedia should not contain pornography, but nudity is okay. Some people may not be cool with the idea of looking at nudity, but they have just as much right to not "Click here to see image containing nudity" as they do to avoid other places where they'd see nudity (Playboy, porno sites, etc.) Nudity is okay because it describes how things really do look. Drawings should not be considered watered down photos. They're good at showing some details that may not be apparent in photographs. Photographs on the other hand, show reality. I think both are perfectly acceptable. Understanding that certain people are sensitive to seeing nudity, we should mask it behind a link. But we are not making an encyclopedia specifically for grade schools, and we are not making an encyclopedia for people who turn red at the site of genitalia. Individuals need to exercise control of their viewing habits, and schools and parents need to be aware of what children are surfing to. That's just not our job.
Agreed ++.
Should make the warning more obvious though. Bold or something equivalent.
Done! :-)
Sorry, I'm just uncomftorble with nudity in Wikipedia in general, although drawings are okay.
--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
--- cprompt cprompt@tmbg.org wrote:
All concerned parties, be advised of my article [[Peyronie disease]].
My view is that the Wikipedia should not contain pornography, but nudity is okay. Some people may not be cool with the idea of looking at nudity, but they have just as much right to not "Click
here
to see image containing nudity" as they do to avoid other
places
where they'd see nudity (Playboy, porno sites, etc.) Nudity is okay because it describes how things really do look. Drawings should not be considered watered down photos. They're good at showing some details that may not be apparent in photographs. Photographs on the other hand, show reality. I think both are perfectly acceptable. Understanding that certain people are sensitive to seeing nudity, we should mask it behind a link. But we are not making an encyclopedia specifically for grade schools, and we are not making an encyclopedia for people who turn red at the site of genitalia. Individuals need to exercise control of their viewing habits, and schools and parents need to be aware of what children are surfing to. That's just not our job.
Agreed ++.
Should make the warning more obvious though. Bold or something equivalent.
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--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Sorry, I'm just uncomftorble with nudity in Wikipedia in general, although drawings are okay.
I too am not too keen on nudity.
I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can really positively impact the lives and education of younger people. By which I mean anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know how old that is, but my guess is around 4 years old)
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old inquisitive mind to the W without any reservation.
Besides, if someone wants to see adult nudity, I can give them a few "juicy" links ;) Just to demonstrate I'm not prude or anything.
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At 12:54 AM 5/14/03 -0700, Christopher wrote:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Sorry, I'm just uncomftorble with nudity in Wikipedia in general, although drawings are okay.
I too am not too keen on nudity.
Whereas I don't think it's a big deal. It's appropriate in certain circumstances, like taking a shower, getting a massage (and that is not a euphemism), or sleeping. It's inappropriate in certain others, including a business meeting or going outside when it's snowing.
I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can really positively impact the lives and education of younger people. By which I mean anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know how old that is, but my guess is around 4 years old)
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old inquisitive mind to the W without any reservation.
So would I. I have no desire to drop anything that might be called porn into the Wikipedia. But articles on anatomy--whether of the knee or the vulva--benefit from illustrations.
--- Vicki Rosenzweig vr@redbird.org wrote:
At 12:54 AM 5/14/03 -0700, Christopher wrote:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can
really positively
impact the lives and education of younger people.
By which I mean
anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know
how old that is,
but my guess is around 4 years old)
your guess is even a bit pessimistic. Mine knew sooner.
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old
inquisitive mind to the
W without any reservation.
I had a though. There was talk last september with Mirwin and others about how wikipedia could be used in school in particular. We currently have two identifiers for pict. The image, where the image is displayed on the screen, and the media, which provides a link (so allow giving a warning to readers) Why not having a third qualifier, such as mediaA (adult) which would provide a link. But the link would not be ckickable (or visible whatever or displaying another warning, or asking to enter "coucou" to check whether the reader is over 6, whatever) depending on checking a little box on your prefs ? or setting it by default ?
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Hey, I didn't write that!
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can
really positively
impact the lives and education of younger people.
By which I mean
anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't
know
how old that is,
but my guess is around 4 years old)
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--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Hey, I didn't write that!
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can
really positively
impact the lives and education of younger
people.
By which I mean
anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't
know
how old that is,
but my guess is around 4 years old)
ho ! My apologies Dan. I probably mixed ownership contributions in the text. Sorry, I didnot mean to do this.
Ant
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--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Hey, I didn't write that!
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can
really positively
impact the lives and education of younger
people.
By which I mean
anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't
know
how old that is,
but my guess is around 4 years old)
ho ! My apologies Dan. I probably mixed ownership contributions in the text. Sorry, I didnot mean to do this.
Ant
I wrote that.
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-+- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Sorry, I'm just uncomftorble with nudity in Wikipedia in general, although drawings are okay.
I too am not too keen on nudity.
I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can really positively impact the lives and education of younger people. By which I mean anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know how old that is, but my guess is around 4 years old)
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old inquisitive mind to the W without any reservation.
Your parenting methods are your own business. However, if nudity is appropriate and informative in an article, it should be treated like any other material addition. The display of nudity for educational purposes is legal in almost every non-theocratic nation, including, as far as I can tell, the United States.
The problem with the clitoris photo inserted by MaryMary was that it was not particularly informative (the clitoris itself was barely visible), that it looked like it was cropped from a porn picture, and that the copyright status was unclear. This is why I objected to having it, otherwise I would have insisted on adding at the very least a direct link to the picture, stored on the Wikipedia server. A photo and a drawing are far from the same thing, and if your 10 year old inquisitive mind wants to know what a clitoris is, it helps tremendously to actually see a photo thereof. Abstractions have advantages and disadvantages, usually, both are required, especially for children.
Regards,
Erik
Hmm... Maybe we can flag certain links as containing nudity? Then, the link to an actual image would not display, nor would the image load if a person made a setting in their Preferences. Perhaps links to nudity could be restricted so that they can only be referenced by a certain subdomain, which schools could (probably) block fairly easily, regardless of a person's preferences. That's just an idea off the top of my head, I'm not sure it's any more feasible than flagging certain articles to contain boilerplate text like disclaimers.
Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Sorry, I'm just uncomftorble with nudity in Wikipedia in general, although drawings are okay.
I too am not too keen on nudity.
I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can really positively impact the lives and education of younger people. By which I mean anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know how old that is, but my guess is around 4 years old)
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old inquisitive mind to the W without any reservation.
Besides, if someone wants to see adult nudity, I can give them a few "juicy" links ;) Just to demonstrate I'm not prude or anything.
Hmm... Maybe we can flag certain links as containing nudity? Then, the link to an actual image would not display, nor would the image load if a person made a setting in their Preferences. Perhaps links to nudity could be restricted so that they can only be referenced by a certain subdomain, which schools could (probably) block fairly easily, regardless of a person's preferences. That's just an idea off the top of my head, I'm not sure it's any more feasible than flagging certain articles to contain boilerplate text like disclaimers.
This should be part of a general category scheme, not a specific solution for images which are perceived as possibly offensive to a limited segment of the population. What if someone finds articles about Christianity offensive? Can they block them, too? Singling out the issue of sexually explicit material is not neutral.
Regards,
Erik
You mean the content is offensive? I think sexually explicit material falls into a fundimentally different category. Plus, the [[Christianity]] page doesn't say, "Jesus Christ is our savior and he will eventualy come back to smite all of the people who aren't good christians" (sorry, I don't know much about christianity, I'm jewish). All it says is different opinions of different sects of christianity (hopefully) and doesn't present any as fact. If christianity is offensive, then so are half the articles in wikipedia. Just think of World Book, the current school encyclopedia almost everywhere. They report on Christianity, but they don't contain sexually explicit images. If we start to allow this, then who knows how far it will snowball?
-LittleDan
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
This should be part of a general category scheme, not a specific solution for images which are perceived as possibly offensive to a limited segment of the population. What if someone finds articles about Christianity offensive? Can they block them, too? Singling out the issue of sexually explicit material is not neutral.
Regards,
Erik
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LittleDan-
You mean the content is offensive? I think sexually explicit material falls into a fundimentally different category. Plus, the [[Christianity]] page doesn't say, "Jesus Christ is our savior and he will eventualy come back to smite all of the people who aren't good christians" (sorry, I don't know much about christianity, I'm jewish). All it says is different opinions of different sects of christianity (hopefully) and doesn't present any as fact. If christianity is offensive, then so are half the articles in wikipedia. Just think of World Book, the current school encyclopedia almost everywhere. They report on Christianity, but they don't contain sexually explicit images. If we start to allow this, then who knows how far it will snowball?
You're missing my point. My point is that, from an NPOV perspective, sexually explicit content is no different than any other content. It may offend some people, it may be desired by other people. Singling out sexualy explicit content for filtering would be a POV decision on our part, as we would be explicitly supporting filtering in this instance, but in no other. If we implement any filtering, it should be applicable to all types of content.
Regards,
Erik
On 14 May 2003 23:04:00 +0200, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de gave utterance to the following:
You're missing my point. My point is that, from an NPOV perspective, sexually explicit content is no different than any other content. It may offend some people, it may be desired by other people. Singling out sexualy explicit content for filtering would be a POV decision on our part, as we would be explicitly supporting filtering in this instance, but in no other. If we implement any filtering, it should be applicable to all types of content.
Ok then, consider a parallel case: For many years, the Encyclopedia Brittanica contained quite detailed information on the extraction of opitates from poppies (it may still do for all I know, but the only copy I have access to is 1970's) - probably enough for someone to be able to replicate it. Or perhaps the case of chemical recipies for explosives - should Wikipedia, in the interests of being NPOV and encyclopedic, include these? Some information is suppressed for the "public good". In fact the scope of information that is suppressed is one of the key determinants of whether we regard a particular political environment as being "free" or not. -- Richard Grevers File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
Richard-
Ok then, consider a parallel case: For many years, the Encyclopedia Brittanica contained quite detailed information on the extraction of opitates from poppies (it may still do for all I know, but the only copy I have access to is 1970's) - probably enough for someone to be able to replicate it. Or perhaps the case of chemical recipies for explosives - should Wikipedia, in the interests of being NPOV and encyclopedic, include these?
Depends on whether they cross the threshold of potential legal liability.
Some information is suppressed for the "public good".
This is wrong. Censorship will never increase the public good. Those who desire the information in question to do harm will find channels through which they can obtain it, since they are already willing to commit a crime. Meanwhile, those who need the information in order to prevent harm will have difficulty finding it.
The only forms of censorship Wikipedia should abide by are those demanded by United States law (or the respective local equivalents for the international Wikipedias).
Regards,
Erik
On Wed, 2003-05-14 at 17:57, Erik Moeller wrote:
Richard-
Ok then, consider a parallel case: For many years, the Encyclopedia Brittanica contained quite detailed information on the extraction of opitates from poppies (it may still do for all I know, but the only copy I have access to is 1970's) - probably enough for someone to be able to replicate it. Or perhaps the case of chemical recipies for explosives - should Wikipedia, in the interests of being NPOV and encyclopedic, include these?
Depends on whether they cross the threshold of potential legal liability.
Some information is suppressed for the "public good".
This is wrong. Censorship will never increase the public good. Those who desire the information in question to do harm will find channels through which they can obtain it, since they are already willing to commit a crime. Meanwhile, those who need the information in order to prevent harm will have difficulty finding it.
The only forms of censorship Wikipedia should abide by are those demanded by United States law (or the respective local equivalents for the international Wikipedias).
That is one view. As a practical matter, there's a lot of censorship that, if removed, would lead to harm at least in the short term. The less censorship, the more complicated the situation. And in a world with some reliance on secrecy (such as of monetary information) there needs to be some censorship.
I agree that long term and in general society would benefit from minimal censorship, but at the same time I wouldn't want to be the one caught in the bind of having information valuable to me being in the wrong hands.
All this is better discussed in Transparent Society, by the way.
Cunc-
I agree that long term and in general society would benefit from minimal censorship, but at the same time I wouldn't want to be the one caught in the bind of having information valuable to me being in the wrong hands.
No, these are different issues. When someone obtains private information from you and distributes it without your consent, you can prosecute them for doing so. But you can't stop the further distribution of that data. If it's out there, it's out there - deal with it.
Regards,
Erik
Does that mean anything, or is it just an empty meme?
--- The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
All this is better discussed in Transparent Society, by the way.
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Erik Moeller wrote:
The only forms of censorship Wikipedia should abide by are those demanded by United States law (or the respective local equivalents for the international Wikipedias).
The "international" (that is, non-English) Wikipedias are also subject only to US and (I think) California law. That's where they're located, after all. (Although suggestions have been made in the past to self-censor [[fr:]] and [[zh:]] in order to prevent the governments of France and the PRC from declaring it illegal to *view* them, which isn't exactly the same thing.)
And Enciclopedia Libre is governed by Spanish law.
-- Toby
Erik Moeller wrote:
The only forms of censorship Wikipedia should abide by are those demanded by United States law (or the respective local equivalents for the international Wikipedias).
I would amend this only in saying that I think international wikipedians should of course follow the law in their own country -- I'd hate to think of us taking up a collection for a fund to help a fellow wikipedian in Iran or North Korea who has been imprisoned for writing an NPOV article on some topic that is suppressed there.
But there is no need for kr.wikipedia.org (Korean wikipedia) to be concerned, as an institution, for Korean law.
I suppose there might be a difficult decision to be made at some point, if -- for example -- France tried to block wikipedia because they didn't approve of something we've published (as in the case of Yahoo). Do we follow French law, so as to at least reach the French with as much NPOV as we can, or do we refuse, and trust the French people to find a way around the ban?
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
The only forms of censorship Wikipedia should
abide by are those demanded
by United States law (or the respective local
equivalents for the
international Wikipedias).
I would amend this only in saying that I think international wikipedians should of course follow the law in their own country -- I'd hate to think of us taking up a collection for a fund to help a fellow wikipedian in Iran or North Korea who has been imprisoned for writing an NPOV article on some topic that is suppressed there.
But there is no need for kr.wikipedia.org (Korean wikipedia) to be concerned, as an institution, for Korean law.
I suppose there might be a difficult decision to be made at some point, if -- for example -- France tried to block wikipedia because they didn't approve of something we've published (as in the case of Yahoo). Do we follow French law, so as to at least reach the French with as much NPOV as we can, or do we refuse, and trust the French people to find a way around the ban?
Imho, better trust us to have imagination and to find ways to turn around things. In France, I would say the toughest is not the law, the toughest are (is ?) the barriers people build themselves thinking of the law.
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Anthere wrote:
Imho, better trust us to have imagination and to find ways to turn around things. In France, I would say the toughest is not the law, the toughest are (is ?) the barriers people build themselves thinking of the law.
This is an insightful comment, but its truth is not limited to France.
There are a lot of people running around trying, in completely good faith, to impose an interpretation of the law that has more to do with their view of the law than the law itself. In other words most of them have no idea what they are talking about, and no direct connection with the current issue. At Wikipedia we probably notice it more in terms of intellectual property law, but it can also come up in other area such as libel, obscenity, sedition etc. My general approach to these is (in order): 1. Use common sense in what I say or write. 2. Investigate what business the complainer has making his complaint 3. Use common sense in evaluating the complaint 4. Admit when I'm wrong while knowing full well that it is easier to get forgiveness than to get permission
The difficulty is obtaining permission is not based on an unwillingness of somebody to give it, but in determining with any certainty just who has the right to give that permission.
Ec
Hey guys/gals, check out the last post in Village Pump, someone know whether such a concept is useful or feasible?
-----
Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis." -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
--- Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com wrote:
Hey guys/gals, check out the last post in Village Pump, someone know whether such a concept is useful or feasible?
Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis." -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
I don't know why we'd want to do that.
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Imho, better trust us to have imagination and to find ways to turn around things. In France, I would say the toughest is not the law, the toughest are (is ?) the barriers people build themselves thinking of the law. Anthere
I think it's is. The verb should agree with the subject, and the subject is singular. --LittleDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Imho, better trust us to have imagination and to find ways to turn around things. In France, I would say the toughest is not the law, the toughest are (is ?) the barriers people build themselves thinking of the law. Anthere
I think it's is. The verb should agree with the subject, and the subject is singular. --LittleDan
"Are" is correct. The implicit subject is "barriers" -- plural
Ec
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Imho, better trust us to have imagination and to find ways to turn around things. In France, I would say the toughest is not the law, the toughest are (is ?) the barriers people build themselves thinking of the law. Anthere
I think it's is. The verb should agree with the subject, and the subject is singular. --LittleDan
"Are" is correct. The implicit subject is "barriers" -- plural
Ec
I am relieved to read it was apparently not obvious ;-)
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Richard Grevers wrote in part:
Some information is suppressed for the "public good".
Hmm ... who here believes that suppressing anatomical photographs of genitals is in fact in the "public good"? I guess LittleDan -- who else?
In fact the scope of information that is suppressed is one of the key determinants of whether we regard a particular political environment as being "free" or not.
I vote to keep Wikipedia "free". ^_^
-- Toby
On Wed, 14 May 2003 17:22:04 -0700, Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu gave utterance to the following:
Richard Grevers wrote in part:
Some information is suppressed for the "public good".
Hmm ... who here believes that suppressing anatomical photographs of genitals is in fact in the "public good"? I guess LittleDan -- who else?
I don't - although if their inclusion results in W being banned from schools etc then it becomes debatable as to whether inclusion is in Wikipedia's best interests.
In fact the scope of information that is suppressed is one of the key determinants of whether we regard a particular political environment as being "free" or not.
I vote to keep Wikipedia "free". ^_^
Well in the "free" United States since recent regulations, if someone posted information that certain agencies decided were an aid to terrorists, could not those agencies arrest Jimbo for refusing to disclose information on the user who posted it?
Richard Grevers wrote in part:
Well in the "free" United States since recent regulations, if someone posted information that certain agencies decided were an aid to terrorists, could not those agencies arrest Jimbo for refusing to disclose information on the user who posted it?
Yeah, I think that that is a danger here these days. Luckily, pictures of clitorises aren't suspect to them yet (although Ashcroft did cover up that statue of justice).
-- Toby
--- Richard Grevers lists@dramatic.co.nz wrote:
Hmm ... who here believes that suppressing
anatomical photographs of
genitals is in fact in the "public good"? I guess
LittleDan -- who else?
I don't - although if their inclusion results in W being banned from schools etc then it becomes debatable as to whether inclusion is in Wikipedia's best interests.
That's exactly what I mean. Just imagine if AOL's filters decided to block wikipedia? Wouldn't it be in the "public good" to not have wikipedia blocked? I know what you're going to say: "So we should listen to the filters?" I'm going to be a realist: Yes.
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--- Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote:
On Thu, 2003-05-15 at 17:45, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
That's exactly what I mean. Just imagine if AOL's filters decided to block wikipedia?
Don't get our hopes up, man -- that would block a large portion of our vandals. :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Some of our best contributers use AOL. I remember a little while ago, you suggested (perhaps jokingly) that we should block all of AOL to keep out the vandals. Then somebody (but I cant remember who, I think a sysop) responded that he uses AOL. Just because you don't like AOL doesn't mean you should keep up with this empty critisism.
--LittleDan
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Richard Grevers wrote:
I don't - although if their inclusion results in W being banned from schools etc then it becomes debatable as to whether inclusion is in Wikipedia's best interests.
I think that's right. And I think LittleDan's concerns are legitimate, quite apart from any questions of censorship. The question is: how do we present information that's potentially "hot" in a fashion that's NPOV and educational and tasteful, and in the case in point, would a drawing be better than a photo?
I have certainly in my day seen photos of genetalia that were tasteful and "medical", as well as photos that were tasteless, as well as photos that were tasteful and erotic. As with any form of expression, there's a thoughtful and responsible way to express what we want to express, and we should do that.
Well in the "free" United States since recent regulations, if someone posted information that certain agencies decided were an aid to terrorists, could not those agencies arrest Jimbo for refusing to disclose information on the user who posted it?
Not that it's really relevant right now, but I take the very rare position among libertarians of finding that the Patriot Act provisions that you're referring to are not nearly as draconian as most media outlets and civil libertarins make them out to be. It's not a good law, but the changes that it made are much less than most people realize.
I'll post more about this if people are interested.
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Richard Grevers wrote:
I don't - although if their inclusion results in W
being banned from
schools etc then it becomes debatable as to
whether inclusion is in
Wikipedia's best interests.
I think that's right. And I think LittleDan's concerns are legitimate, quite apart from any questions of censorship. The question is: how do we present information that's potentially "hot" in a fashion that's NPOV and educational and tasteful, and in the case in point, would a drawing be better than a photo?
I have certainly in my day seen photos of genetalia that were tasteful and "medical", as well as photos that were tasteless, as well as photos that were tasteful and erotic. As with any form of expression, there's a thoughtful and responsible way to express what we want to express, and we should do that.
Well in the "free" United States since recent
regulations, if someone
posted information that certain agencies decided
were an aid to terrorists,
could not those agencies arrest Jimbo for refusing
to disclose information
on the user who posted it?
Not that it's really relevant right now, but I take the very rare position among libertarians of finding that the Patriot Act provisions that you're referring to are not nearly as draconian as most media outlets and civil libertarins make them out to be. It's not a good law, but the changes that it made are much less than most people realize.
I'll post more about this if people are interested.
--Jimbo
I'm interested
Even before the USAPA (USA Patriot Act), the US government could still require people to disclose information to the government if they had significant proof that it would solve a pending case and a judge certified this. The USAPA effectly removed this requisite, instead replacing it with that if the government suspected someone to be a terrorist (under the definition someone planning to destroy property), a judge would be _forced_ to sign that they can search. Also, with the USAPA, the government is automatically authorised to search _all_ of wikipedia even if the search warrant only authorises one part of it. --LittleDan
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Richard Grevers wrote in part:
Some information is suppressed for the "public good".
There's a paradox here. Who defines the public good if not the public? But if the information is suppressed from the public, how can the public make an informed choice about what to suppress? As Juvenal asked "Who watches the watchers?"
Ec
Hmm... I guess I've lost my prtection from severe critisism from my young age I used to have on this list. Actually, I'm glad I'm being treated as an equal. But I disagree with what you said.
--LittleDan
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
Hmm ... who here believes that suppressing anatomical photographs of genitals is in fact in the "public good"? I guess LittleDan -- who else?
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Hmm... I guess I've lost my prtection from severe critisism from my young age I used to have on this list. Actually, I'm glad I'm being treated as an equal. But I disagree with what you said.
I hope that I've never treated you «as a 13-year-old» (or whatever you are). You've always been an equal in my eyes.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Hmm... I guess I've lost my prtection from severe critisism from my young age I used to have on this list. Actually, I'm glad I'm being treated as an equal. But I disagree with what you said.
I hope that I've never treated you «as a 13-year-old» (or whatever you are). You've always been an equal in my eyes.
If you act like a grown-up you get treated like a grown-up -- for better or for worse!
Ec
Richard Grevers wrote:
Ok then, consider a parallel case: For many years, the Encyclopedia Brittanica contained quite detailed information on the extraction of opitates from poppies (it may still do for all I know, but the only copy I have access to is 1970's) - probably enough for someone to be able to replicate it. Or perhaps the case of chemical recipies for explosives - should Wikipedia, in the interests of being NPOV and encyclopedic, include these?
Yes, I think so. There might be some practical reasons to refrain in some cases, i.e. if a legal battle which threatened the future of the project seemed likely, then a tough decision would have to be made as to the best course of action. But that's highly unlikely.
Some information is suppressed for the "public good". In fact the scope of information that is suppressed is one of the key determinants of whether we regard a particular political environment as being "free" or not. -- Richard Grevers
Hopefully, wikipedia works in the service of the free flow of information as much as we can.
--Jimbo
You're missing MY point. From a relistic perspective, sexually explicit images are in a different category than articles describing christianity in Western culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
You're missing my point. My point is that, from an NPOV perspective, sexually explicit content is no different than any other content. It may offend some people, it may be desired by other people. Singling out sexualy explicit content for filtering would be a POV decision on our part, as we would be explicitly supporting filtering in this instance, but in no other. If we implement any filtering, it should be applicable to all types of content.
Regards,
Erik
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I completely agree. (someone, respond to this or Erik and I will conspire to make all of Wikipedia POV)
--LittleDan
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Daniel-
I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
If you think we should get rid of NPOV for "special situations", just say so. I'm sure a nice discussion will follow :-)
Regards,
Erik
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
You're missing MY point. From a relistic perspective, sexually explicit images are in a different category than articles describing christianity in Western culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
Each category has its own range for what is objectionable. "Sexually explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to goatse.cx. Others might find the extreme views of "creation science" and "holocaust denial" to be just as objectionable.
Ec
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
You're missing MY point. From a relistic
perspective,
sexually explicit images are in a different
category
than articles describing christianity in Western culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
Each category has its own range for what is objectionable. "Sexually explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to goatse.cx. Others might find the extreme views of "creation science" and "holocaust denial" to be just as objectionable.
Ec
Creation science and holocaust denial are objectionable, but they are presented as opinion, not fact. That is the main difference. You cant make an NPOV photograph.
--LittleDan
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On Fri, 16 May 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:38:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the clitoris guy
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
You're missing MY point. From a relistic
perspective,
sexually explicit images are in a different
category
than articles describing christianity in Western culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
Each category has its own range for what is objectionable. "Sexually explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to goatse.cx. Others might find the extreme views of "creation science" and "holocaust denial" to be just as objectionable.
Ec
Creation science and holocaust denial are objectionable, but they are presented as opinion, not fact. That is the main difference. You cant make an NPOV photograph.
--LittleDan
So, umm, just what opinions does a photograph have? As long as they aren't doctored or staged, photographs are about as NPOV as it gets around here. You _can_ make a POV photograph, but you have to try. The inclusion or not is where the POV usually starts to creep in. And it seems to be trying to do so now.
John R. Owens wrote:
On Fri, 16 May 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:38:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the clitoris guy
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
You're missing MY point. From a relistic
perspective,
sexually explicit images are in a different
category
than articles describing christianity in Western culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
Each category has its own range for what is objectionable. "Sexually explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to goatse.cx. Others might find the extreme views of "creation science" and "holocaust denial" to be just as objectionable.
Ec
Creation science and holocaust denial are objectionable, but they are presented as opinion, not fact. That is the main difference. You cant make an NPOV photograph.
--LittleDan
So, umm, just what opinions does a photograph have? As long as they aren't doctored or staged, photographs are about as NPOV as it gets around here. You _can_ make a POV photograph, but you have to try. The inclusion or not is where the POV usually starts to creep in. And it seems to be trying to do so now.
The [[Rachel Corrie]] article had POV problems resulting from the inclusion or exclusion of a certain type of photo, or a certain quanitty of photos. Also, some of the photos were misleading. In one, Rachel was standing in front of the bulldozer in plain site of the person operating it. However, the question arises at what time was it? If it was "moments before her death" as some argued, then the person operating the bulldozer knew she was there. Otherwise, she may have not been visible at the time of her death. I don't want to dredge all of this up again, but photos, maps, and diagrams can be just as POV as statistics and quotes.
John R. Owens wrote:
On Fri, 16 May 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Each category has its own range for what is objectionable. "Sexually explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to goatse.cx. Others might find the extreme views of "creation science" and "holocaust denial" to be just as objectionable.
Ec
Creation science and holocaust denial are objectionable, but they are presented as opinion, not fact. That is the main difference. You cant make an NPOV photograph.
--LittleDan
So, umm, just what opinions does a photograph have? As long as they aren't doctored or staged, photographs are about as NPOV as it gets around here. You _can_ make a POV photograph, but you have to try. The inclusion or not is where the POV usually starts to creep in. And it seems to be trying to do so now.
Yes the choice of photos can be a POV act.
Consider a penis as a flagpole for the American flag. Is that POV enough? Ec
So, umm, just what opinions does a photograph have?
As long as they aren't
doctored or staged, photographs are about as NPOV
as it gets around here.
You _can_ make a POV photograph, but you have to
try.
The inclusion or not is where the POV usually
starts to creep in. And it
seems to be trying to do so now.
Yes the choice of photos can be a POV act.
Consider a penis as a flagpole for the American flag. Is that POV enough? Ec
Well, that would have to be staged.
I guess I phrased myself wrong. But I wasn't saying that pictures are POV, I was saying that _if we use_ photographs in the way we might, it could be considered POV. But that doesn't really make sense, what I'm saying. It's kinda meta-POV; I can't explain it. But the issue here isn't really POV. The atribute of POV or NPOV can't be applied to pictures like this (with yours as an exception), just how we use them.
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On 5/16/03 3:39 PM, "Daniel Ehrenberg" littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Well, that would have to be staged.
I guess I phrased myself wrong. But I wasn't saying that pictures are POV, I was saying that _if we use_ photographs in the way we might, it could be considered POV. But that doesn't really make sense, what I'm saying. It's kinda meta-POV; I can't explain it. But the issue here isn't really POV. The atribute of POV or NPOV can't be applied to pictures like this (with yours as an exception), just how we use them.
Arg. The creeping nonsense of jargon. Try writing the above without using acronyms, and maybe it'll start making sense.
It is impossible for anything to be truly neutral. Once people are willing to admit that, we can all work usefully to discover, admit, and counteract bias.
But if we as a Wikipedian community persist in claims such as "X is NPOV", "Y is POV", we'll always fail.
The Cunctator wrote in part:
It is impossible for anything to be truly neutral. Once people are willing to admit that, we can all work usefully to discover, admit, and counteract bias.
Right, "NPOV" is a *relative* term. Much like "complete" and "accurate", which we also strive to be.
-- Toby
--- "John R. Owens" jowens.wiki@ghiapet.homeip.net wrote:
On Fri, 16 May 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:38:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the
clitoris guy
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
You're missing MY point. From a relistic
perspective,
sexually explicit images are in a different
category
than articles describing christianity in
Western
culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
Each category has its own range for what is objectionable. "Sexually explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to goatse.cx. Others might find the extreme views of "creation science" and "holocaust denial" to be just as objectionable.
Ec
Creation science and holocaust denial are objectionable, but they are presented as opinion,
not
fact. That is the main difference. You cant make
an
NPOV photograph.
--LittleDan
So, umm, just what opinions does a photograph have? As long as they aren't doctored or staged, photographs are about as NPOV as it gets around here. You _can_ make a POV photograph, but you have to try. The inclusion or not is where the POV usually starts to creep in. And it seems to be trying to do so now.
-- John R. Owens
Sorry, I misphrased myself. What I mean was that you cant take a photo and make it unobjectionable.
--LittleDan
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I don't think our NPOV policy makes things unobjectionable. I think what it does is provides us with a way to take objectionable or controversial things and frame them in a detached way, from which they can be understood or appreciated critically.
My point is that the issue is not the difference between POV and NPOV (as if some things are clearly one or the other); I think the real issue is the relationship between a thing and its frame, or context. Many of us have struggled, with varying degrees of success, to learn how to use one set of words to provide this kind of context for another set of words. But the question of drawings or photographs creates another dimension to the text/context distinction.
By the way, I am not sure I see much of a difference between a drawing and a photograph as such. I think some people think photos have more potential to disturb because they are presumably photos of a real person (that is, a photo of a clitoris is the photo of a specific woman's clitoris; a drawing of a clitoris can be a drawing of no one's clitoris -- but I think this is a side issue).
On the one hand, we expect photos or drawings to illustrate an article. In this sense, a photo can be a good or bad illustration, and we should be careful to select photos that illustrate something in need of illustration, and no more. But what would be controversial would not be the photo itself but rather the thing the photo illustrates. Photos illustrating mistral shows or the Holocaust will be disturbing because they are illustrating disturbing things. The question of NPOV pertains to how the article itself presents these disturbing events or practices.
On the other hand, the relationship between text and context is not static or stable -- text and context often swap places easily. In other words, it is not just the written article that "frames" the photo; the photo "frames" the article. I think this is what lay behind some people's objection to the presence of nail-polish in the photos. The implication (not a necessary implication, but I think reasonable) is that the image conveyed information besides the form or location of the clitoris, that re-framed -- in a way, biased (or "POV'd") the article. I think this is a reasonable concern. People will not just interpret the photo based on what the article says, they will interpret the article based on the kind of photo.
I don't know if this is a very constructive comment. I guess I am saying that 1) photos can be useful to illustrate 2) photos in and of themselves are neither offensive or inoffensive; the emotional or intellectual value of a photo has to do with its context 3) we need to accept that if people will have sensitivities to the topic of the article, they will be sensitive to anything that illustrates it -- I think this is unavoidable 4) it is still useful to remember the spirit of the NPOV policy, that we must be careful not only about what we write but how what we write occurs in a context, or calls for a context, or provides a context, that can be judgmental or exclude someone's views, or that can be non-judgmental and that is more inclusive of different views. I think this principal can guide us both in our use of words and images.
Well, just some thoughts. Steve 4)
At 12:54 PM 5/16/2003 -0700, you wrote:
--- "John R. Owens" jowens.wiki@ghiapet.homeip.net wrote:
On Fri, 16 May 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:38:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the
clitoris guy
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
You're missing MY point. From a relistic
perspective,
sexually explicit images are in a different
category
than articles describing christianity in
Western
culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is nessessary in a situation like this.
Each category has its own range for what is objectionable. "Sexually explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to goatse.cx. Others might find the extreme views of "creation science" and "holocaust denial" to be just as objectionable.
Ec
Creation science and holocaust denial are objectionable, but they are presented as opinion,
not
fact. That is the main difference. You cant make
an
NPOV photograph.
--LittleDan
So, umm, just what opinions does a photograph have? As long as they aren't doctored or staged, photographs are about as NPOV as it gets around here. You _can_ make a POV photograph, but you have to try. The inclusion or not is where the POV usually starts to creep in. And it seems to be trying to do so now.
-- John R. Owens
Sorry, I misphrased myself. What I mean was that you cant take a photo and make it unobjectionable.
--LittleDan
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--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
Creation science and holocaust denial are objectionable, but they are presented as opinion, not fact. That is the main difference. You cant make an NPOV photograph.
With Photoshop (or GIMP for the MS/Mac-Impaired), you can definitely make a photo POV.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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For wikipedia to be an valid educational source, it needs to have some kind of approval system. From what I understand, this has been discussed since Day 1 of Wikipedia, but I think it is time to impliment it. If wikipedia is ever to be printed or used in schools, it must be scrutinized and validated (or invalidated) on an article-by-article basis.
-LittleDan
--- Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can really positively impact the lives and education of younger people. By which I mean anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know how old that is, but my guess is around 4 years old)
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old inquisitive mind to the W without any reservation.
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Isn't that what the Nupedia is for? I think Nupedia's big draw was "reviewed content" and Wikipedia's was "anyone can edit".
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
For wikipedia to be an valid educational source, it needs to have some kind of approval system. From what I understand, this has been discussed since Day 1 of Wikipedia, but I think it is time to impliment it. If wikipedia is ever to be printed or used in schools, it must be scrutinized and validated (or invalidated) on an article-by-article basis.
-LittleDan
--- Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
I feel that an encyclopedia ofour caliber can really positively impact the lives and education of younger people. By which I mean anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know how old that is, but my guess is around 4 years old)
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old inquisitive mind to the W without any reservation.
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
For wikipedia to be an valid educational source, it needs to have some kind of approval system. From what I understand, this has been discussed since Day 1 of Wikipedia, but I think it is time to impliment it. If wikipedia is ever to be printed or used in schools, it must be scrutinized and validated (or invalidated) on an article-by-article basis.
you mean the way google results are?
Sorry for being flippant, but isn't our process, worldwide and by real experts actually better and less prone to ceonsorship than state-sponsored child-proofing committees?
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com
--- Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
For wikipedia to be an valid educational source,
it
needs to have some kind of approval system. From
what
I understand, this has been discussed since Day 1
of
Wikipedia, but I think it is time to impliment it.
If
wikipedia is ever to be printed or used in
schools, it
must be scrutinized and validated (or invalidated)
on
an article-by-article basis.
you mean the way google results are?
Sorry for being flippant, but isn't our process, worldwide and by real experts actually better and less prone to ceonsorship than state-sponsored child-proofing committees?
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell
Indeed, a search for clitoris on Google brings up much worse results, but a search for peryonie's disease brings up no pictures or diagrams whatsoever on the condition. We need to stay somewhere in the middle.
I'm sorry for the comment on my previous post; when I talk about wikipedia in schools, I usually try to think realistically. But you have a point. Maybe Wikipedia needs to be shown to schools somehow. Google and the internet have demonstrated to be good educational resources; now we should do the same. There could be a side project, say, edu.wikipedia.org, that we would set aside for educational purposes, although not censored much, if at all (although porn is still not allowed). The goal would be to have 1000 articles simple enough for the 10-year-old interested in diseases to understand, yet still complete, and with no broken links. Then, we could have a sample for schools and educational institutions to look at, as a sample for when Wikipedia is complete. The small number of articles would keep each article in great shape, reducing the need for designated editing and approval commitees. The 1000 articles would each hold information previously spread over many articles, as many "real" encyclopedias do. There would be no rambot pages or anything made by a bot. Even though there would be only 1000 articles, an infinite number of redirect pages would be allowed. Would this plan work?
I change my opinion far too frequently.
--LittleDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
For wikipedia to be an valid educational source, it needs to have some kind of approval system. From what I understand, this has been discussed since Day 1 of Wikipedia, but I think it is time to impliment it. If wikipedia is ever to be printed or used in schools, it must be scrutinized and validated (or invalidated) on an article-by-article basis.
I believe it already is a "valid educational source".
Waiting for approval from educational bureaucrats, and being restricted by their political whims would destroy Wikipedia as we know it. The scrutiny would be not just on an article by article basis, but on a school district by school district basis. The range of these from permissive open-minded to Christian or Islamic fundamentalist is so wide that we would never have the resources to do all the needed editing.
Wikipedia's primary value is not as a static source in the way that a printed book or CD wuld be. It is as a growing, dynamic and editable source. In the perpetual battle between the irresistable force and the immovable object we are on the side of the irresistable force. Here in British Columbia the provincial department of education (at least in theory) bases education on three principles of learning. The one that is relevant in this context is that education requires the active participation of the learner. The learner is not there to just passively vacuum up knowledge; he needs to contribute to that knowledge interactively. The old model based on respecting the elders who painstakingly amassed a precious body of knowledge is not working as well as it used to.
In the economic terms of supply and demand the supply of knowledge has been made higher than ever by electronic means. The last time knowledge got such a boost came with Gutenberg in the 15th century. Taking an example from a modern 18th century democracy like the United States, we have the Electoral College. It reflects a time when Gutenberg's revolution had taken hold, but before the revolutions in transportation of the 19th century. Communicating the results of elections from Georgia and New Hampshire was not a simple task. It would have stretched the imagination of the drafters of the constitution to conceive that some day a far larger and more populous country would be able to have all the results in one place before the end of voting day. (The Florida anomaly would have been no less baffling to them as to the modern person.)
Returning to education, the opportunity that we offer is in dynamically learning the skills of democratic participation. Focusing on the negative act of controling sexually explicit material or the positive act of promoting religious or patriotic values would both have us missing the opportunity. Part of the skill too is learning to cope with the disruptive elements in the society.
I could maintain this rant a lot longer! :-)
Eclecticology
Like I said before: *in theory*, wikipedia is a great educational source, but *in practice*, no one believes it. Wikipedia does have its flaws that I believe could be solved by this.
--LittleDan
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I believe it already is a "valid educational source".
Waiting for approval from educational bureaucrats, and being restricted by their political whims would destroy Wikipedia as we know it. The scrutiny would be not just on an article by article basis, but on a school district by school district basis. The range of these from permissive open-minded to Christian or Islamic fundamentalist is so wide that we would never have the resources to do all the needed editing.
Wikipedia's primary value is not as a static source in the way that a printed book or CD wuld be. It is as a growing, dynamic and editable source. In the perpetual battle between the irresistable force and the immovable object we are on the side of the irresistable force. Here in British Columbia the provincial department of education (at least in theory) bases education on three principles of learning. The one that is relevant in this context is that education requires the active participation of the learner. The learner is not there to just passively vacuum up knowledge; he needs to contribute to that knowledge interactively. The old model based on respecting the elders who painstakingly amassed a precious body of knowledge is not working as well as it used to.
In the economic terms of supply and demand the supply of knowledge has been made higher than ever by electronic means. The last time knowledge got such a boost came with Gutenberg in the 15th century. Taking an example from a modern 18th century democracy like the United States, we have the Electoral College. It reflects a time when Gutenberg's revolution had taken hold, but before the revolutions in transportation of the 19th century. Communicating the results of elections from Georgia and New Hampshire was not a simple task. It would have stretched the imagination of the drafters of the constitution to conceive that some day a far larger and more populous country would be able to have all the results in one place before the end of voting day. (The Florida anomaly would have been no less baffling to them as to the modern person.)
Returning to education, the opportunity that we offer is in dynamically learning the skills of democratic participation. Focusing on the negative act of controling sexually explicit material or the positive act of promoting religious or patriotic values would both have us missing the opportunity. Part of the skill too is learning to cope with the disruptive elements in the society.
I could maintain this rant a lot longer! :-)
Eclecticology
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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From: Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:24:46 -0700 (PDT) To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia for education
Like I said before: *in theory*, wikipedia is a great educational source, but *in practice*, no one believes it. Wikipedia does have its flaws that I believe could be solved by this.
--LittleDan
It is in practice too. We share our library here with the local Charter School and I have set in the computer room watching and helping a student research a paper using Wikipedia. Educators have no particular axe to grind with the bulk of our articles (other than being nonexistant or incomplete).
Another activity I have noted is using editing a wikipedia article as a class project. You can see the results of one effort in the first paragraph of the [[bear]] article.
The only reason Wikipedia is not used more by students and in the classroom and in homework assignments is that most folks haven't heard of it. But anyone who uses google and does research will eventually find us.
There is some risk to teachers using or recommending Wikipedia, but as has been pointed out santitizing the entire encyclopedia to satisfy all possible conservative viewpoints is both impractical and undesirable.
Fred
Fred Bauder wrote:
There is some risk to teachers using or recommending Wikipedia, but as has been pointed out santitizing the entire encyclopedia to satisfy all possible conservative viewpoints is both impractical and undesirable.
Fred
You are correct, but that risk is no greater than allowing students to access Google. The problem is that schools that use something like N2H2, which maintains a database of blocked sites, sorted by the category they were blocked under (pornographic, tasteless, drug related, gambling related, etc.) they might have no other way of filtering out the parts of Wikipedia they don't agree with other than to block the domain. I think we might be able to avoid this by using Nudity somewhere in the URL (maybe [[Image:Nudity/Peyronie_disease.jpg]]), so they can filter out specific portions of the encyclopedia. I see this as akin to the practice of masking nude images behind a link with a warning. This is just a warning for filtering software.
--cprompt
Fred Bauder wrote:
It is in practice too. We share our library here with the local Charter School and I have set in the computer room watching and helping a student research a paper using Wikipedia. Educators have no particular axe to grind with the bulk of our articles (other than being nonexistant or incomplete).
Self-esteem is very important in some educational circles. Where children are able to fill in some of Wikipedia's inevitable gaps, and have their work treated with the same value and respect as the work of a university professor it will be a tremendous boost to self-esteem.
Another activity I have noted is using editing a wikipedia article as a class project. You can see the results of one effort in the first paragraph of the [[bear]] article.
That's exactly the kind of thing we want to happen.
Ec
I agree, but many kids think the oposite way: "Hey, if I put false information or just a random vandalisation attack here, it'll be regarded just as good as anything a professor writes!" At least one person who I told about wikipedia has vandalised it, probably more, but the only do that once.
--LittleDan
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Self-esteem is very important in some educational circles. Where children are able to fill in some of Wikipedia's inevitable gaps, and have their work treated with the same value and respect as the work of a university professor it will be a tremendous boost to self-esteem.
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Hi Dan,
I have to disagree a bit I'm afraid. Before I discovered Wikipedia my internet maths bible was www.mathworld.wolfram.com, a pretty comprehensive maths encyclopaedia. Now, revising for my final university maths exams I probably use both Wolfram and Wikipedia with about equal frequency. I trust Wikipedia's content because I know that lots of the maths related articles have been looked over (or created) by users like Michael Hardy and Axel Boldt. From their contributions it's clear that they know what they're talking about (there's other users I could mention here).
I'm not convinced that Wikipedia's fallability is such a bad thing, it's a good demonstration of the fact that you should never base something entirely on one source. If I'm trying to understand a maths topic I'll generally look it up on Wikipedia, Wolfram, the books on my shelves and the notes from my lectures. None of these sources are perfect (sadly, especially my lecture notes) but often the different explanations between the four can shed light on the topic.
Also, I don't really have any idea how, for example, Britannica writes their maths articles. Do they actually employ mathematicians to write them? Do they get a list of Topics in Maths and do some googling? It's probably true that Britannica have a lower error/article ratio than Wikipedia but it doesn't mean I should have blind faith in them. In fact, I expect that the more esoteric the topic, the more likely it is to have errors in it as it's more difficult to check. Another example could be biographies of long dead people, how much effort do they put into looking through contemporary research on the person and how much do they, in effect, just reprint out of date versions from years ago?
Anyway, I'm beginning to ramble so I'll wrap this up. My point is that used properly (the same as every other resource) I believe that Wikipedia is a useful educational resource.
Cheers,
Andrew (Ams80)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" littledanehren@yahoo.com To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 1:24 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia for education
Like I said before: *in theory*, wikipedia is a great educational source, but *in practice*, no one believes it. Wikipedia does have its flaws that I believe could be solved by this.
--LittleDan
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I believe it already is a "valid educational source".
Waiting for approval from educational bureaucrats, and being restricted by their political whims would destroy Wikipedia as we know it. The scrutiny would be not just on an article by article basis, but on a school district by school district basis. The range of these from permissive open-minded to Christian or Islamic fundamentalist is so wide that we would never have the resources to do all the needed editing.
Wikipedia's primary value is not as a static source in the way that a printed book or CD wuld be. It is as a growing, dynamic and editable source. In the perpetual battle between the irresistable force and the immovable object we are on the side of the irresistable force. Here in British Columbia the provincial department of education (at least in theory) bases education on three principles of learning. The one that is relevant in this context is that education requires the active participation of the learner. The learner is not there to just passively vacuum up knowledge; he needs to contribute to that knowledge interactively. The old model based on respecting the elders who painstakingly amassed a precious body of knowledge is not working as well as it used to.
In the economic terms of supply and demand the supply of knowledge has been made higher than ever by electronic means. The last time knowledge got such a boost came with Gutenberg in the 15th century. Taking an example from a modern 18th century democracy like the United States, we have the Electoral College. It reflects a time when Gutenberg's revolution had taken hold, but before the revolutions in transportation of the 19th century. Communicating the results of elections from Georgia and New Hampshire was not a simple task. It would have stretched the imagination of the drafters of the constitution to conceive that some day a far larger and more populous country would be able to have all the results in one place before the end of voting day. (The Florida anomaly would have been no less baffling to them as to the modern person.)
Returning to education, the opportunity that we offer is in dynamically learning the skills of democratic participation. Focusing on the negative act of controling sexually explicit material or the positive act of promoting religious or patriotic values would both have us missing the opportunity. Part of the skill too is learning to cope with the disruptive elements in the society.
I could maintain this rant a lot longer! :-)
Eclecticology
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Christopher Mahan wrote:
I feel that an encyclopedia of our caliber can really positively impact the lives and education of younger people. By which I mean anyone who can read and click a mouse (I don't know how old that is, but my guess is around 4 years old)
I doubt that 4-year-olds can profitably read our text. Still, we shouldn't bar them from reading, so your point is OK.
I would want to be able to send a 10 year old inquisitive mind to the W without any reservation.
I would send a 10-year-old to [[en:Peyronie disease]] without reservation.
Besides, if someone wants to see adult nudity, I can give them a few "juicy" links ;) Just to demonstrate I'm not prude or anything.
What good would that do the 10-year-old interested in Peyronie disease? You may not be a prude, but you still equate nudity with pornography, so you may as well be one. I want to see pictures of Peyronie disease, not bowlderised drawings (detailed drawings that aid understanding are OK), nor irrelevant "juicy" porn just to demonstrate that you're not a prude.
-- Toby
Nobody's suggesting the drawings should be bowdlerised. They all *should* be more detailed, and most (if not all) drawings illustrating disease are more detailed.
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
What good would that do the 10-year-old interested in Peyronie disease? You may not be a prude, but you still equate nudity with pornography, so you may as well be one. I want to see pictures of Peyronie disease, not bowlderised drawings (detailed drawings that aid understanding are OK), nor irrelevant "juicy" porn just to demonstrate that you're not a prude. -- Toby
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Nobody's suggesting the drawings should be bowdlerised. They all *should* be more detailed, and most (if not all) drawings illustrating disease are more detailed.
This wasn't clear to me from the preceding posts. Why is a clear drawing inoffensive when a photograph offends? (I have no idea, but then I have little idea why the photo offends in the first place.)
As I mentioned, a detailed drawing would be a good idea. Of course, it shouldn't *replace* a photograph -- how could it? -- but *complement* a photo.
-- Toby
Toby-
I would send a 10-year-old to [[en:Peyronie disease]] without reservation.
So long as this is not the only sexual information they see, as practiced by United States abstinence "education". Want to warp minds? Then let them only see pictures of sexual diseases and not of natural sexual organs when they're still young.
On topic: Whether or not we allow nudity should have nothing to do with whether it is in a negative or positive context (again with the obvious restriction that we have to follow laws, so illustrating [[pornography]] with public domain porn will, for the time being, remain impossible).
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Toby wrote:
I would send a 10-year-old to [[en:Peyronie disease]] without reservation.
So long as this is not the only sexual information they see, as practiced by United States abstinence "education". Want to warp minds? Then let them only see pictures of sexual diseases and not of natural sexual organs when they're still young.
First of all, [[Peyronie disease]] is not primarily about sexuality. It does touch on the topic, however, since the disease affects sex. So yes, [[Penis]] should also have a picture of a healthy penis. And [[Circumcision]] should have a picture of two for comparison!
On topic: Whether or not we allow nudity should have nothing to do with whether it is in a negative or positive context (again with the obvious restriction that we have to follow laws, so illustrating [[pornography]] with public domain porn will, for the time being, remain impossible).
What law would that actually break?
-- Toby
Regarding the issue of photographs of genitals, we can distinguish three classes of people: * those who wish to view them * those who don't wish to view them * those who don't wish others to view them The first two classes are perfectly accomodated by having the photographs hidden behind links that unambiguously describe their content; the third class does not deserve any accomodation.
Drawings are important in anatomy, because they allow to show hidden and internal structures and allow to emphasize distinctions by using separate colors. At the same time, they can be very misleading when not accompanied by a real-world photo.
Personally, I was raised on biology-textbook drawings of the female anatomy. They were terribly confusing: it was impossible to tell what was inside and outside, what was visible and invisible, how big things were. They made the first porn I got my hands on that much more valuable.
Axel
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You had a bad biology textbook. There should still be drawings of what it looks like on the outside. But I guess an adequate warning is OK. Maybe the images should be kept outside Wikipedia, as external links for more information. We don't put pictures of everything on Wikipedia, but there are often external links that provide more information including photographs. I think this should be no different.
--LittleDan
--- Axel Boldt axelboldt@yahoo.com wrote:
Regarding the issue of photographs of genitals, we can distinguish three classes of people:
- those who wish to view them
- those who don't wish to view them
- those who don't wish others to view them
The first two classes are perfectly accomodated by having the photographs hidden behind links that unambiguously describe their content; the third class does not deserve any accomodation.
Drawings are important in anatomy, because they allow to show hidden and internal structures and allow to emphasize distinctions by using separate colors. At the same time, they can be very misleading when not accompanied by a real-world photo.
Personally, I was raised on biology-textbook drawings of the female anatomy. They were terribly confusing: it was impossible to tell what was inside and outside, what was visible and invisible, how big things were. They made the first porn I got my hands on that much more valuable.
Axel
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--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On topic: Whether or not we allow nudity should
have nothing to do with
whether it is in a negative or positive context
(again with the obvious
restriction that we have to follow laws, so
illustrating [[pornography]]
with public domain porn will, for the time being,
remain impossible).
What law would that actually break?
-- Toby
I was also wondering what was defining porn. I do not see the pict at the origin of this discussion as a porn pict really. More like an erotic one. Hmmm. Not so erotic that I see any trouble keeping it (except for the cp possible issue). Since we are on an american server, how does the american law draw the line between what is porn and what is not porn ? And is porn illegal in the US ?
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--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
I was also wondering what was defining porn. I do not see the pict at the origin of this discussion as a porn pict really. More like an erotic one. Hmmm. Not so erotic that I see any trouble keeping it (except for the cp possible issue). Since we are on an american server, how does the american law draw the line between what is porn and what is not porn ? And is porn illegal in the US ?
AFAIK, it varies from state to state. Child pornography is illegal in all 50 states. Most of the adult anti-porn laws are in the so-called "bible belt", comprising much of the south- and mid-west states (not california, where the servers are located). There, hardcore porn is illegal, but softcore porn is legal. In case you're wondering how I know all this (Oh no! That little boy travels around the country buying pornography!), I read it in a book about internet privacy.
--LittleDan
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--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
I was also wondering what was defining porn. I do not see the pict at the origin of this discussion as a porn pict really. More like an erotic one. Hmmm.
Not
so erotic that I see any trouble keeping it
(except
for the cp possible issue). Since we are on an american server, how does the american law draw the line between what is porn
and
what is not porn ? And is porn illegal in the US ?
AFAIK, it varies from state to state. Child pornography is illegal in all 50 states. Most of the adult anti-porn laws are in the so-called "bible belt", comprising much of the south- and mid-west states (not california, where the servers are located). There, hardcore porn is illegal, but softcore porn is legal. In case you're wondering how I know all this (Oh no! That little boy travels around the country buying pornography!), I read it in a book about internet privacy.
--LittleDan
Little boys and little girls have to learn that one day. I hope you did more than read but also look :-)
Note that if I see quite well what children porn can be, I am still wondering how these states define softcore porn from hardcore porn. Is this soft porn then ? (I get it what you label soft is erotic ?)
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--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
Note that if I see quite well what children porn can be, I am still wondering how these states define softcore porn from hardcore porn. Is this soft porn then ? (I get it what you label soft is erotic ?)
Once again, it varies. The book I read didn't define any of the terms, probably for this reason.
--LittleDan
PS. Could everyone please sign their letters?
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On Fri, 16 May 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:36:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the clitoris guy
--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
Note that if I see quite well what children porn can be, I am still wondering how these states define softcore porn from hardcore porn. Is this soft porn then ? (I get it what you label soft is erotic ?)
Once again, it varies. The book I read didn't define any of the terms, probably for this reason.
--LittleDan
PS. Could everyone please sign their letters?
I'll make you a deal: I'll always sign mine, if you'll always set quoted text off consistently. ;)
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote in part:
PS. Could everyone please sign their letters?
Everyone *does* sign their letters, in the From: header. Some additionally sign them in the text, for convenience; but if you don't see that, then check the From: header.
What we don't always have is a link between the letter and a username *on*Wikipedia*. Maybe that's what you meant. It'd be nice if everybody signed with their Wikipedia username (except where it matches their email username).
-- Toby
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
I don't think we should have an actual photograph in this case. Just think what would be acceptable in schools (actually, a lot of wikipedia probably wouldn't be acceptable in schools, like its lack of "drugs are evil" stance, but this is much worse). I don't think photographs of genitalia belong in an encyclopedia, no matter how informative. Drawings would be a much better alternative.
One of the beauties of NPOV is that it works like a fancy martial arts move to undermine critics. Anyone who is critical of our lack of "drugs are evil" stance is not going to be able to say that we are a pro-drug encyclopedia, because we aren't pro- or anti- anything.
If a fact is value-sensitive, we don't assert it, we report that it is asserted. We can quite honestly and accurately report on the arguments of the drug warriors and their opponents, and we should be doing it in such a way that neither side will find anything particular objectionable about our presentation.
It a little harder to wrap one's mind around NPOV for a picture -- after all, isn't a picture objectively 'true' in a sense, so long as it isn't faked? But a picture says a thousand words, and those words can have bias, nuance, suggested other meanings, etc. 100 pictures or drawings of something controversial will all be different, and some will be objectionable to some people for various reasons. The NPOV choice should make everyone -- or nearly so -- happy.
We have managed to have several articles on obscene words that are tactful and tasteful and informative and entertaining and NPOV. We ought to be able to treat this issue in the same way.
I think that Daniel Ehrenberg is right, that a drawing is likely to be more educational, more informative, and -- importantly -- to be more tasteful.
Not everything in the wikipedia needs to be such that mainstream parents will think it is o.k. for kids to read, although most of it should be. Someday there will probably be a kids wikipedia, probably partly machine-generated and partly human-edited.
--Jimbo