This will always be an issue for Wikipedia because there will always be places where cultural differences make it difficult for people to find consensus.
This shows up most prominently with photos, I think, because with text we have a great deal more flexibility in terms of working together to write the text in a way that is satisfactory to a wide audience.
The question has arisen here: what positive arguments can be given for the inclusion of nudity in Wikipedia articles? I think this is an important question and it deserves a proper answer. Or, I should say "it deserves proper answers" because they answers are many and vary according to the particular case.
Consider as an example articles about human sexuality, including articles about sexually transmitted diseases. Such articles more or less require illustration for completeness. This does not mean that the illustrations should be done in "porn movie" style -- the problem of tastefully and accurately representing medical/sexual information is an old one which is solved by textbooks on the subject. I think that the current (well, last time I checked) illustration on [[:en:Clitoris]] is a fine example -- it is accurate, clear, tasteful and "looks like" a textbook illustration rather than a bad porn movie.
Consider, too, articles about great works of art from the past, works which include nudity. I surely don't need to explain this.
As a practical matter, though, these kinds of arguments only need to be made in order to assure us all that such arguments can be made and have been made. In reality, I think that most of us are somewhere in the broad middle ground -- I don't think there are more than a tiny tiny handful of people who would say that (a) there should be a strict ban on nudity in Wikipedia, or (b) we should place the infamous auto-fellatio image on the homepage this coming Christmas day.
Within the broad middle ground, there is a very wide range of what seem to me to be quite respectable and plausible positions, and a fair amount of thoughtfulness and respect for other people who disagree with us is going to be necessary if we are to make decisions with wide community support.
There are a number of very useful techniques that I think can help to reduce conflict in this area. (Though of course for those who are at the extremes that I mentioned, these don't solve the problem. But honesty, I think most of the people who are posturing at these extremes are actually trolling us in the classical sense, disrupting wikipedia to make a point.)
First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link" solution is helpful. It does not reduce the educational value of an article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link instead of being shown by default inline. And one of the quite reasonable arguments against certain images is that their shock value serves to diminish the educational value of the articles in which they are included.
Second, partisans on both sides might want to consider working to find more tasteful images to illustrate the same concept. If, for example, you find a particular photo disturbing, be creative about finding a different illustration (medical-style drawing, different photo in a different style, etc.) which will meet the educational objectives of those on the other side while removing the shock-value problems.
Third, in all discussions of this sort, I think it best to avoid nationalist or culturalist sneers and arguments. This list has already seen arguments about allegedly prudish American culture -- arguments which (a) have a ring of truth about them and (b) are nonetheless at the same time very mistaken. US culture is extremely complex and multi-layered with many historical quirks and oddities but in my opinion, the US as a whole is significantly less prudish than most Europeans seem to think.
So, yes, in the US large fines were levied for the bizarre Janet Jackson incident. But also, you can flip the channels any night of the week and see people having sex on television. My local grocery store puts discreet covers on magazines which have racy titles, and huge porn stores are open for business just down the street. In my town, a woman can get arrested for going topless on the beach, and yet you can go any night of the week to a nightclub where you can see people having sex openly. Diversity. :-)
The point I'm trying to make is that _for Wikipedia_ wide-ranging discussions about the alleged prudishness or decadence of Americans are not really going to help us get very far in figuring out how to handle issues of taste.
"Assume good faith" is key, but also "Don't feed the trolls" is key. Knowing when to do one versus the other is tricky and I can offer no advice other than to be careful and thoughtful and kind.
--Jimbo --Jimbo
Jimmy Wales said:
First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link" solution is helpful. It does not reduce the educational value of an article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link instead of being shown by default inline.
I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary importance. I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating topics where the image and the text are best seen together Nobody has to download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the image and the text it is supposed to illustrate. Inlining is *always* more flexible. If you link an image, you are *taking choice away from the reader.*
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Jimmy Wales said:
First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link" solution is helpful. It does not reduce the educational value of an article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link instead of being shown by default inline.
I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary importance. I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating topics where the image and the text are best seen together Nobody has to download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the image and the text it is supposed to illustrate. Inlining is *always* more flexible. If you link an image, you are *taking choice away from the reader.*
Agreed, although I think that an ideal solution would be a content-filtering system where users could choose which images they wanted to see. Displaying images as links by default would, detract from my experience as a user who isn't offended by those images.
While I think that we should be aware of people's sensitivity in regards to these images, we should do so without detracting from the educational value of other readers. Not offending people should always be secondary to educating them.
Also, we can't promise to avoid offending *everybody* if we get into displaying images as links. Example: birds are considered a symbol of death in japanese culture. Should we then display all images of birds as links? Since Wikipedia aims to be an international project, censoring something that I percieve as offensive may ultimately lead to that being used as rationale to censor something else. It can get out of hand very quickly. But even if it doesn't, I think that linking to images by default can detract from other readers overall experience, and (as Tony said) takes away choice from the reader.
Blog: http://frazzydee.ca
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Faraaz Damji said:
Not offending people should always be secondary to educating them.
Exactly. There's nothing wrong with tweaking a few tweakable noses, especially those who raise purely personal objections, based on local cultural sensitivities, to aspects of an encyclopedic project. Such pressure is a naked and (because we're nice people and don't like to offend, largely successful) attempt to distort the encyclopedia on non-encyclopedic grounds. We can give a little but only where it doesn't matter much.
Also, we can't promise to avoid offending *everybody* if we get into displaying images as links.
This is my long-term objection to the path of appeasement. The only thing we can do in the long term is to remind people who are offended that they don't have to download, let alone render, the pictures. We can't make everybody happy.
On 4/17/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Faraaz Damji said:
Not offending people should always be secondary to educating them.
It's entirely possible to do both. Say a person wants to learn about autofellatio. They can read the article, and be educated. If they want to then see a picture of it, they click a link. Easy. People are still educated, and in this instance, they aren't offended. Furthermore, I think it shows the inherent agenda in the extreme stance here - this quote sums up perfectly how this removes choice from people, "educating" them against their wishes. (and harming Wikipedia as a result, when they stop using it)
Exactly. There's nothing wrong with tweaking a few tweakable noses, especially those who raise purely personal objections, based on local cultural sensitivities, to aspects of an encyclopedic project. Such pressure is a naked and (because we're nice people and don't like to offend, largely successful) attempt to distort the encyclopedia on non-encyclopedic grounds. We can give a little but only where it doesn't matter much.
Oh, come off it. The examples we're talking about aren't based on entirely personal objections or local cultural sensitivities. The only examples of those raised have been your red herrings. My nose is not easily tweaked, but I'm not keen to see the work I do here go to waste because less liberal people won't use the site.
This is my long-term objection to the path of appeasement. The only thing we can do in the long term is to remind people who are offended that they don't have to download, let alone render, the pictures. We can't make everybody happy.
But we can make most of the people happy, most of the time. And then, in the case that some of the unlikely red herrings you've thrown up over the last week actually come true, we say no. Problem solved.
-- ambi
Rebecca said:
On 4/17/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Exactly. There's nothing wrong with tweaking a few tweakable noses, especially those who raise purely personal objections, based on local cultural sensitivities, to aspects of an encyclopedic project. Such pressure is a naked and (because we're nice people and don't like to offend, largely successful) attempt to distort the encyclopedia on non-encyclopedic grounds. We can give a little but only where it doesn't matter much.
Oh, come off it. The examples we're talking about aren't based on entirely personal objections or local cultural sensitivities.
The Titanic picture is an excellent example of one to which some people have expressed entirely personal objections. It is not a shockingly violent image, or even an overtly sexualized one, just a woman in a classic nude pose, the kind of thing you'd expect to see in the window of your local art gallery.
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Jimmy Wales said:
First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link" solution is helpful. It does not reduce the educational value of an article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link instead of being shown by default inline.
I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary importance. I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating topics where the image and the text are best seen together Nobody has to download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the image and the text it is supposed to illustrate. Inlining is *always* more flexible. If you link an image, you are *taking choice away from the reader.*
Linking gives more choice than it takes away.
Also, Jimbo mentioned the shock value of images detracting from the article. The is a very good point that isn't limited to objectionable materials. Its hard to concentrate on reading an article when distracted by certain types of images, and that detracts from the value of the article. For a non-objectionable example see [[Radial engine]]. Try concentrating on reading the article.
This is also a good example of an image being necessary, much more so than autofelletio.
Puddl Duk said:
Linking gives more choice than it takes away.
No. There is no way for current browsers to include in the selected page an image that is contained in another page that is linked from it. Ever since Mosaic, however, there has been the choice to download or not to download the image inline. Most browsers for most of that time have supported the selective downloading of images on an individual basis. Complete choice, complete control.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Jimmy Wales said:
First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link" solution is helpful. It does not reduce the educational value of an article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link instead of being shown by default inline.
I think this is a good idea where a photograph is of subsidiary importance. I think it would have be a poor choice for illustrating topics where the image and the text are best seen together Nobody has to download the inline image, but if the Wikipedia editors link the image instead of inlining there is no easy way for the reader can see both the image and the text it is supposed to illustrate. Inlining is *always* more flexible. If you link an image, you are *taking choice away from the reader.*
It seems to me that allowing a person to click on a link give a lot more choice to the reader than being forced to see (or not see) an image. Have I somehow misunderstood the difference between "inlining" and "linking"? If so, I must make it clear that I support clicking to give more choice to the reader.
Ec
Ray Saintonge said:
It seems to me that allowing a person to click on a link give a lot more choice to the reader than being forced to see (or not see) an image.
I tried to explain earlier. Here it is again in detail. By the way, in case you're wondering, my phobia is real. This is a fictional example, but my extreme reaction to pictures of certain bugs is very real. Suppose I know that there is a web page out there in entomology-land that contains several pictures, many of which I'm pretty sure will give me waking hallucinations. Other pictures on the web page, well I'm very keen to look at them. It seems that the site owners have wisely interspersed the text of the page with inline images, they're all in the appropriate place in the page and they all have appropriate filenames, alt tags or captions. So it's a doddle, I just go to the website and read it like normal. If I see a picture caption that looks interesting, I use the right button menu to make it appear in the page--which takes a second or so for most pictures. If a caption suggests an image that may cause me to have a terrifying hallucination, I don't click it. Now suppose we caterpillarphobes all ganged up and said it wasn't right showing pictures of caterpillars on bug websites, and we convinced them that this was very distressing and shouldn't be ignored. Maybe they'd react by linking those images. That would suck because it wouldn't make things any better for me (I'm already quite happy because I know which pictures I want to see in the article and I select them). But everybody who didn't mind looking at ugly bugs (and I'm told there are quite a few!) would no longer have the option of making their own mind up whether to see the caterpillars alongside the text that they illustrate. Inline an image on Wikipedia, and you give the reader three choices:
He can look at the image as you intended it to be seen, in the article.
He can look at the article without the image.
He can look at the image without the article.
Link the image and you leave him with only two of those choices. The most valuable of those choices--which should probably be the default for all readers who do not have a serious reaction to the image, is removed. There is no way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Once you displace an inlined image to a link, the text and the illustration are divorced. All you have done is to take away from the run-of-the-mill reader the opportunity to see the text and the illustration together, so he can read the description and look at the corresponding picture.
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge said:
It seems to me that allowing a person to click on a link give a lot more choice to the reader than being forced to see (or not see) an image.
I tried to explain earlier. Here it is again in detail. By the way, in case you're wondering, my phobia is real. This is a fictional example, but my extreme reaction to pictures of certain bugs is very real. Suppose I know that there is a web page out there in entomology-land that contains several pictures, many of which I'm pretty sure will give me waking hallucinations. Other pictures on the web page, well I'm very keen to look at them. It seems that the site owners have wisely interspersed the text of the page with inline images, they're all in the appropriate place in the page and they all have appropriate filenames, alt tags or captions. So it's a doddle, I just go to the website and read it like normal. If I see a picture caption that looks interesting, I use the right button menu to make it appear in the page--which takes a second or so for most pictures. If a caption suggests an image that may cause me to have a terrifying hallucination, I don't click it. Now suppose we caterpillarphobes all ganged up and said it wasn't right showing pictures of caterpillars on bug websites, and we convinced them that this was very distressing and shouldn't be ignored. Maybe they'd react by linking those images. That would suck because it wouldn't make things any better for me (I'm already quite happy because I know which pictures I want to see in the article and I select them). But everybody who didn't mind looking at ugly bugs (and I'm told there are quite a few!) would no longer have the option of making their own mind up whether to see the caterpillars alongside the text that they illustrate. Inline an image on Wikipedia, and you give the reader three choices:
He can look at the image as you intended it to be seen, in the article.
He can look at the article without the image.
He can look at the image without the article.
Link the image and you leave him with only two of those choices. The most valuable of those choices--which should probably be the default for all readers who do not have a serious reaction to the image, is removed. There is no way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Once you displace an inlined image to a link, the text and the illustration are divorced. All you have done is to take away from the run-of-the-mill reader the opportunity to see the text and the illustration together, so he can read the description and look at the corresponding picture.
The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes on autofelletio).
Puddl Duk said:
The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes on autofelletio).
Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"? I don't think it resembles what I have described in any way.
Tony Sidaway said:
Puddl Duk said:
The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes on autofelletio).
Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"? I don't think it resembles what I have described in any way.
I would also like to point out that the first successful deletion of an autofellatio picture only occurred well after a vandal had exploited a loophole to turn many talk pages into illustrations of autofellatio. I take great pleasure in pointing out that, even so, prior to a very substantial vote packing effort on the last Autofellatio vote (the one on the new image) the keep vote was about twice as strong as the delete vote. Even when desperate, blatantly unethical measures were taken, there was no consensus to delete. The copyright objections had been satisfied and the vandalism had been curtailed by a code fix. Thus the day was won by the merit of having a GDFL-compatible picture of a man sucking his own penis available to illustrate an article about that encyclopedic and otherwise rather incredible subject.
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Puddl Duk said:
The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes on autofelletio).
Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"? I don't think it resembles what I have described in any way.
Ok, requiring the right mouse button extra click to see any image. Not an acceptable choice for most people and therfore shouldn't be compared to linking, which is an acceptable choice to most people.
I object to taking away the community's right to decide what images to use or not (if they happen to be objectionable), just because browers are able to do what you say.
Puddl Duk said:
On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"? I don't think it resembles what I have described in any way.
Ok, requiring the right mouse button extra click to see any image.
Absolutely not. The reader is free to download the entire article, images and all, or the article without images, or to select which images he does or does not want to see. He has complete control. He is not forced to browse with images, or without them, or to download any given image he does not want to.
The reader is *not* free. The reader is given a choice to either go to a patently ridiculous extreme, and manually enable each image, or to have it thrown in their face regardless. This is opposed to the awful (and one-off) strain that clicking one link would cause to the poor person who really must see the autofellatio picture.
-- ambi
On 4/17/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Puddl Duk said: Absolutely not. The reader is free to download the entire article, images and all, or the article without images, or to select which images he does or does not want to see. He has complete control. He is not forced to browse with images, or without them, or to download any given image he does not want to.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Rebecca said:
The reader is *not* free. The reader is given a choice to either go to a patently ridiculous extreme, and manually enable each image, or to have it thrown in their face regardless. This is opposed to the awful (and one-off) strain that clicking one link would cause to the poor person who really must see the autofellatio picture.
We appear to have a difference of opinion on the ease of operation of modern browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. As a person who often uses both in this mode I can assure you that it's neither extreme nor ridiculous. It's very sensible and it solves the problem totally.
On 4/17/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Rebecca said:
The reader is *not* free. The reader is given a choice to either go to a patently ridiculous extreme, and manually enable each image, or to have it thrown in their face regardless. This is opposed to the awful (and one-off) strain that clicking one link would cause to the poor person who really must see the autofellatio picture.
We appear to have a difference of opinion on the ease of operation of modern browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. As a person who often uses both in this mode I can assure you that it's neither extreme nor ridiculous. It's very sensible and it solves the problem totally.
I can't get this to work in firefox (maybe I'm computer illiterate). Works fine in IE, but FF doesn't have a rightmousebuttonclick to show image inline (when image downloads are off). New FF downloaded yesterday.
Puddl Duk said:
On 4/17/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
We appear to have a difference of opinion on the ease of operation of modern browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. As a person who often uses both in this mode I can assure you that it's neither extreme nor ridiculous. It's very sensible and it solves the problem totally.
I can't get this to work in firefox (maybe I'm computer illiterate). Works fine in IE, but FF doesn't have a rightmousebuttonclick to show image inline (when image downloads are off). New FF downloaded yesterday.
Firefox doesn't do it out of the box. You need to download the appropriate extensions.
On 4/18/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
We appear to have a difference of opinion on the ease of operation of modern browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. As a person who often uses both in this mode I can assure you that it's neither extreme nor ridiculous. It's very sensible and it solves the problem totally.
...but is also a major nuisance anytime you want to use any other site than Wikipedia, or in the 99% of cases where this is not an issue. (and still doesn't help you know if an image is likely to be offensive in the first place)
Rebecca said:
On 4/18/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
We appear to have a difference of opinion on the ease of operation of modern browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. As a person who often uses both in this mode I can assure you that it's neither extreme nor ridiculous. It's very sensible and it solves the problem totally.
....but is also a major nuisance anytime you want to use any other site than Wikipedia, or in the 99% of cases where this is not an issue. (and still doesn't help you know if an image is likely to be offensive in the first place)
If you're likely to be offended by Wikipedia, you're likely to be offended by other websites. As it happens I configure my browser to switch images on and off with a click. This is an individual problem and an individual solution is best. To adopt a group solution will only degrade the content of Wikipedia.
geni said:
This is an individual problem and an individual solution is best. To adopt a group solution will only degrade the content of Wikipedia.
Argument by assertion logical fallacy
It is a fact that a linked image cannot be put back into the article by the browser, but an inlined image *can* be turned into a link or placeholder by the browser. It is a fact that the decision to link images is a matter of individual taste; there is nothing intrinsically unencyclopedic about the content which certain individuals are proposing to separate from the articles on grounds of their own personal taste, and no encyclopedic purpose is served by degrading the encyclopedia in this way. It follows that the proposal to link boob pictures is an overreaction to a personal distaste for boob pictures rather than an encyclopedic necessity.
It is a fact that a linked image cannot be put back into the article by the browser, but an inlined image *can* be turned into a link or placeholder by the browser.
In fact it is theoreticly posible to turn a link back into an image
It is a fact that the decision to link images is a matter of individual taste; there is nothing intrinsically unencyclopedic about the content which certain individuals are proposing to separate from the articles on grounds of their own personal taste, and no encyclopedic purpose is served by degrading the encyclopedia in this way. It follows that the proposal to link boob pictures is an overreaction to a personal distaste for boob pictures rather than an encyclopedic necessity.
Can you prove it degrads the enclyopedia?
geni said:
It is a fact that a linked image cannot be put back into the article by the browser, but an inlined image *can* be turned into a link or placeholder by the browser.
In fact it is theoreticly posible to turn a link back into an image
I think you use the word "theoretically" with great licence, even though it is a significant concession. Where in the page would the image be placed? What size would the image be displayed at?
Can you prove it degrads the enclyopedia?
Absolutely. Here's an exercise.
Write a test article on your sandbox. Place an image inline in the article. Place it so that it goes well with the text that it illustrates. If it's a diagram, annotate it so that points in the text are plainly depicted. Notice how well the image complements the text. Notice how the placement of the image can be used to break up long text, and how the use of color, in the case of a colored image, makes the page more attractive. Now edit the article to replace the inlined image with a link.
The article and the image are now separated. It isn't possible to see the linked image in the article any more. One has to memorize detail when switching from image to article--even if one places them side by side in separate browser windows. The article has been degraded.
On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 12:45:29PM +0100, Tony Sidaway wrote:
geni said:
It is a fact that a linked image cannot be put back into the article by the browser, but an inlined image *can* be turned into a link or placeholder by the browser.
In fact it is theoreticly posible to turn a link back into an image
I think you use the word "theoretically" with great licence, even though it is a significant concession. Where in the page would the image be placed? What size would the image be displayed at?
Just a thought: How about using CSS to show a block of color of the size and dimensions of an image that might be deemed "inappropriate" by popular standards of prudishness, with the ability to replace/cover that block with the image itself by clicking on it? This would be simple enough to implement it, involving probably a class= for potentially objectionable images. This could be the default behavior, with a link in place of the caption that says simply something like "This photo may be objectionable to some viewers. Click here to turn off content filtering." This would reload the page with the image shown, depositing a cookie on the client system that circumvents the image blocking in future visits to the site.
This way, we'd have:
A) initial default behavior that satisfies the more "sensitive" readers
B) initial default behavior that allows a one-click-per-image ability to inline the image without altering the layout of the page
C) a clear indication to viewers that the article would be better demonstrated by inline inclusion of the image if the viewer is willing to view it
and D) the ability to click once, ever, the first time you visit the site, to turn off this default behavior and simply have EVERYTHING inlined
I'm not saying this is the best option. It's just something that occurred to me and, in comparison with category rating and fine-grained controls on the server side, should be relatively trivial to implement, while maintaining a near-maximum degree of control in the hands of the viewer in terms of what he or she sees on the site. The only caveats to that are that the browser being used would have to properly implement the CSS used and, of course, some kind of "potentially objectionable material" image insertion wiki tag would have to be implemented to make it easily used when adding images to articles. Oh, and it would require people who wish to circumvent image blocking to accept cookies, which at Wikipedia doesn't bother me personally, but might bother others.
I suppose there's the concern that it might make the site aesthetically less pleasing to those who choose to browse with image blocking, but that seems to me to be no worse than the lack of illustrative images for encyclopedic purposes being inlined.
Thoughts? Comments?
Can you prove it degrads the enclyopedia?
Absolutely. Here's an exercise.
I think answering that rather than adjusting the language is probably not the best possible response. Saying it "degrades" it, without specifying what qualities are degraded, invites intractable differences of opinion. Perhaps, rather than saying "Absolutely," you might say "Yes: specifically, it degrades the encyclopedic informative capabilities of Wikipedia by removing illustrative images from their context within the article." That, I think, would be difficult to argue against, whereas simply saying "Absolutely!" leaves "degrade" undefined except by example, which admits room for counter examples, et cetera.
It's difficult to reach a meeting of the minds when the two sides of a debate are using different definitions of the word. It may degrade the article for you by removing illustrative images from context, but the converse may degrade the encyclopedia for someone else by making it objectionable to his sensibilities. Whether you agree that degradation of the encyclopedia according to matters of personal taste is something to give half a fig about, the fact of the matter is that for some people it WILL thusly be degraded, and by failing to define your terms your point gets lost in others' objections.
Granted, you did sorta make your intent clear with an example, but you never explicitly spelled your point out, thus leaving the door open to an inclusive interpretation of "degrade" that allows for "weighted" degradation estimations, where one balances personal taste against encyclopedic standards of content.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Chad Perrin said:
Just a thought: How about using CSS to show a block of color of the size and dimensions of an image that might be deemed "inappropriate" by popular standards of prudishness, with the ability to replace/cover that block with the image itself by clicking on it?
Yes, this is very much along the lines I've been thinking. Give em their figleaf. Figleafing should be configurable (on or off by default) and the user should be able to set his preferences by cookie, without logging in.
On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 06:34:47PM +0100, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Chad Perrin said:
Just a thought: How about using CSS to show a block of color of the size and dimensions of an image that might be deemed "inappropriate" by popular standards of prudishness, with the ability to replace/cover that block with the image itself by clicking on it?
Yes, this is very much along the lines I've been thinking. Give em their figleaf. Figleafing should be configurable (on or off by default) and the user should be able to set his preferences by cookie, without logging in.
Exactly. We seem to be on the same wavelength.
This thought has actually been forming in the back of my brain over the course of the last three to five days without making itself consciously available to me. Only today did it arise as a fully-formed thought complete with the notion that, as a CSS solution, should admit a trivial implementation.
I'm convinced that to be properly implemented, however, it must be cookie-configurable by viewers not logged in from day one. Implementing such that we overshoot our goals of accomodating users in the direction of a pablumpedia would be a Bad Idea. Write the cookie code first, THEN write the CSS.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
No objections here (as long as the block of color appears by default). I'd have suggested such a thing earlier, except that I wasn't sure if it would be technically possible.
-- ambi
On 4/19/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 06:34:47PM +0100, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Chad Perrin said:
Just a thought: How about using CSS to show a block of color of the size and dimensions of an image that might be deemed "inappropriate" by popular standards of prudishness, with the ability to replace/cover that block with the image itself by clicking on it?
Yes, this is very much along the lines I've been thinking. Give em their figleaf. Figleafing should be configurable (on or off by default) and the user should be able to set his preferences by cookie, without logging in.
Exactly. We seem to be on the same wavelength.
This thought has actually been forming in the back of my brain over the course of the last three to five days without making itself consciously available to me. Only today did it arise as a fully-formed thought complete with the notion that, as a CSS solution, should admit a trivial implementation.
I'm convinced that to be properly implemented, however, it must be cookie-configurable by viewers not logged in from day one. Implementing such that we overshoot our goals of accomodating users in the direction of a pablumpedia would be a Bad Idea. Write the cookie code first, THEN write the CSS.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jimmy Wales wrote:
First, whenever possible I think people should try to see if a "link" solution is helpful. It does not reduce the educational value of an article by much if a potentially disturbing image is put behind a link instead of being shown by default inline. And one of the quite reasonable arguments against certain images is that their shock value serves to diminish the educational value of the articles in which they are included.
Another technique that could prove useful in some cases would be to insure that possibly offensive pictures are not near the top of an article. This would avoid shocked reactions from first reactions by people who just came to the page. The picture would not be visible until the reader has scrolled down the page.
Ec
Ray Saintonge said:
Another technique that could prove useful in some cases would be to insure that possibly offensive pictures are not near the top of an article. This would avoid shocked reactions from first reactions by people who just came to the page. The picture would not be visible until the reader has scrolled down the page.
This really does work. If someone genuinely doesn't know what the word "clitoris" means, or gets sent there by a joker who knows he would be offended, it's best if he is not confronted unexpectedly by an unwantedly graphic picture but has a chance to get his bearings. Another example of where this works well is the "Bahá'u'lláh" article. Bahais are resigned to the fact that a Wikipedia article should probably contain a picture of him, but they have brokered an agreement with others to the effect that the article should state that it contains a picture of him, but the actual picture is at the end. I and one or two other admins (Geni? I think you were there) blocked Martin2000 and around a dozen of his socks who tried to edit that picture to the top. He seems to have pretty much given up for the time being.
Jimmy Wales said:
So, yes, in the US large fines were levied for the bizarre Janet Jackson incident. But also, you can flip the channels any night of the week and see people having sex on television. My local grocery store puts discreet covers on magazines which have racy titles, and huge porn stores are open for business just down the street. In my town, a woman can get arrested for going topless on the beach, and yet you can go any night of the week to a nightclub where you can see people having sex openly. Diversity. :-)
Of course. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that the United States produces more hard core pornography than any other country on the planet. But what you describe isn't diversity, it's dysfunction. The lady arrested on the beach doesn't benefit from the fact that an entertainment venue has different rules in your legal system. Please don't try to explain away the limitation of expression of non-Americans by claiming falsely that they're benefiting by the exportation of a completely fictitious diversity.
Good point Tony.
Christiaan
On 17 Apr 2005, at 2:01 am, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Jimmy Wales said:
So, yes, in the US large fines were levied for the bizarre Janet Jackson incident. But also, you can flip the channels any night of the week and see people having sex on television. My local grocery store puts discreet covers on magazines which have racy titles, and huge porn stores are open for business just down the street. In my town, a woman can get arrested for going topless on the beach, and yet you can go any night of the week to a nightclub where you can see people having sex openly. Diversity. :-)
Of course. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that the United States produces more hard core pornography than any other country on the planet. But what you describe isn't diversity, it's dysfunction. The lady arrested on the beach doesn't benefit from the fact that an entertainment venue has different rules in your legal system. Please don't try to explain away the limitation of expression of non-Americans by claiming falsely that they're benefiting by the exportation of a completely fictitious diversity.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Hi!
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 11:21:54 -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
The question has arisen here: what positive arguments can be given for the inclusion of nudity in Wikipedia articles?
Actually, although being decidedly liberal on the issue itself, I would like to raise another aspect. Wikipedia strives not just to inform the Western world, but also the rest of it. And a lot of this rest of the world has not only rather conservative views, but also laws regulating the display of nudity - not to mention conventions; the USA (or rather parts of it) hardly have a monopoly on that; and other areas have much stricter laws, too.
So I don't think we should worry too much over people who might get shocked, we should more worry about people who don't get to see anything of Wikipedia, because some authority deems WP to be to "moraly loose" or whatever.
The problem therefore is, in my opinion, how we can find a way between the need to inform (which does IMO include pictures) and a need to remain accessible to as many people as possible.
We should therefore consider which laws (and sensitivities) we want to consider regarding content at all; the example of birds as a symbol of death shows IMO one case where we would go too far if we excluded those. Sensitivities are one thing, but the nuditiy issue is a triffle heavier than sensitivities. The pic of Bahá'u'lláh on the other hand is one example where we might consider doing the same thing as with nudity pics - linking them.
Which brings me to the solution I support, namely, linking them. Should we consider to link some images instead of showing them directly, we should consider that there is more than one way of offending people; particularly religious images could probably be a similar problems. If a person decides that they won't be offended by any images, they could switch on the direct showing of these images in their preferences, or, if at all practical, people could switch on different levels of potentially offending images. Since that would require different tags, censoring bodies could choose to ban just the display of those images, and not the whole WP.
And now don't get me wrong - I'd be much happier if there was no censorship around the word, and if we could display all kinds of images without risking not only complaints, but censorship of the whole Wikipedia at the recieving end of the line. Unfortunately, the world is not quite as I would like it to be, and given those circumstances, I consider my proposal to be the best compromise. It does not take anything away from those readers who want and can see everything, but it may keep open access to the rest of the Wikipedia to those who otherwise might not see anything of it at all. And it would keep those who are themselfes offended quiet, too, which I however only consider a side-effect.
Greetings from Cologne Alex
Hi!
On Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:58:01 +0100, geni wrote:
That pic isn't linked. Nor is it likely to be. It it simply at the bottem of the page.
I know where it is now. I was merely using it as an example which one might also - as with nude images - consider linking.
Alex
Alex Regh said:
The problem therefore is, in my opinion, how we can find a way between the need to inform (which does IMO include pictures) and a need to remain accessible to as many people as possible.
I have an idea. Let's licence the material using the GFDL! Then anybody who wants to make a bowdlerpedia can do so.
Tony Sidaway (minorityreport@bluebottle.com) [050418 17:37]:
Alex Regh said:
The problem therefore is, in my opinion, how we can find a way between the need to inform (which does IMO include pictures) and a need to remain accessible to as many people as possible.
I have an idea. Let's licence the material using the GFDL! Then anybody who wants to make a bowdlerpedia can do so.
Or they can claim they do, like kids.net.au, and not actually do much work in that direction!
- d.
David Gerard said:
Tony Sidaway (minorityreport@bluebottle.com) [050418 17:37]:
Alex Regh said:
The problem therefore is, in my opinion, how we can find a way between the need to inform (which does IMO include pictures) and a need to remain accessible to as many people as possible.
I have an idea. Let's licence the material using the GFDL! Then anybody who wants to make a bowdlerpedia can do so.
Or they can claim they do, like kids.net.au, and not actually do much work in that direction!
http://www.kids.net.au/encyclopedia-wiki/cu/Cunt
This is probably not the way to do it. :)