This is a difficult issue, and I think extreme positions should be avoided in the interest of coming up with a tasteful and informative compromise.

Some general principles that may be helpful:

1. Placing a link which requires the end user to cut and paste helps to ensure that users never accidentally see something graphic against their desires. That is to say: don't link, just tell the url.

2. Any such url information should be accompanied with a firm disclaimer.

3. Whenever there are sites with substantially the same graphic content, we should choose tastefully. Ogrish, for example, is an extremely tasteless site which should be avoided whenever the content can be found somewhere more tasteful.

4. As with all information in all articles, the usefulness of the information and the historical importance should be a factor as to the matter of inclusion. The Abu Ghraib photos, for example, are of extreme historical interest. Other cases will be less clear. But again, taking an extreme position here is unlikely to get us to a good consensus.

--Jimbo

slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:

Can anyone help with this? An editor has added to the article on former British hostage in Iraq [[Kenneth Bigley]] links to the video showing his murder. I have deleted the link, but the other editor has replaced it again, saying a consensus was reached over the [[Nick Berg]] beheading that Wikipedia would provide a link to these videos.

Does Wikipedia have a policy about publishing links to what is effectively a snuff movie? Personally, I find this highly objectionable and unencylopedic.

Would this video count as primary source material and therefore "original research"?

The other reason I object is that one of the links is to a particularly nasty website featuring bestiality among other things.

Any advice would be much appreciated, either here or on [[Talk:Kenneth Bigley]].

Slim _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l