In a recent letter Anthere makes a number of good points; I agree with almost all of them. She offers a list of disturbing images is given, for good purpose:
I could go on and on forever. All this exist. Most is informative. Some is already in Wikipedia. Most is not. Is it censorship NOT to put these pictures in Wikipedia ? YES, IT IS CENSORSHIP.
On this one point, I respectfully disagree. Censorship is an act which prevents the free discussion of ideas. The term is really only meaningful when it comes to repressing ideas due to a social, religious or political agenda.
When a newspaper, encyclopedia or other source decides not to publish a photo because it does meet editorial standards, that is *not* censorship by any definition of the word. In this case we are merely excercising editorial policy.
Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape or form censorship.
Now, some religious or political zealots could attempt to delete articles on sex, fertilization and preganancy, believing that public discussion of such topics is immodest, or a violation of their religion or philosophy. *That* position would be censorship. In this case people are preventing us from accurately discussing a subject. It is the represssion of ideas for social, religious or political purposes.
But having a group of editors, or the collective decision of a Wiki-community, decide on appropriate images to use has no relationship to censorship in any way. In fact, by definition, it is the job of encyclopedia and newspaper contributors and editors to decide which information to add, and which not to.
Otherwise we end up not with an encyclopedia, but just a massive ugly image-dump and text-dump, of no encyclopedic value.
If we start using the word "censorship" every time an image or text isn't used, then we destroy the meaning of the word. Let's use this term wisely.
Anthere writes:
The english wikipedia has the entire responsability to
decide whether
to keep it or not to keep it, but its decision should
only have a
local impact. There is absolutely no argument to say that
it
should impact all other projects. The english wikipedia
has no
authority over the other projects. It has certainly
experience
to bring, it has plenty of good people to listen to, but
it is
not the boss of other projects.
I agree. Decisions made by the communal consensus of a Wiki-community for one Wiki do not have to impact the decisions made on another wiki.
In the end, let us remember that the entire point of our project is to create a reliable and respected encyclopedia that people actually USE. If we will it with images of explicit violence, sex, and filth, the vast majority of people in the world will simply not use or encyclopedia. Then what is the point of our prject? To make ourselves feel good?
We're here to accomplish a goal for the greater good, and unless our project is read by many others, it can't do that.
Sincerely,
Robert (RK)
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On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 07:42:32AM -0800, Robert wrote:
Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape or form censorship.
I agree with you that this is not censorship. However, your description implies that we don't have such pictures at all.
The articles on [[fertilization]], [[pregnancy]], and so forth all link to [[Sexual intercourse]]. That article, as it so happens, starts out with a photograph of two lions engaging in sexual intercourse, and goes on to include line-drawings (but not lion-drawings) of people doing the same.
So no, we do not editorially exclude images of sexual conduct. We -do- place them on articles whose focus is sexual conduct, for instance [[Sexual intercourse]], rather than on articles whose focus is the cell biology of reproduction or the course of pregnancy.
Karl A. Krueger a écrit:
On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 07:42:32AM -0800, Robert wrote:
Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape or form censorship.
I agree with you that this is not censorship. However, your description implies that we don't have such pictures at all.
The articles on [[fertilization]], [[pregnancy]], and so forth all link to [[Sexual intercourse]]. That article, as it so happens, starts out with a photograph of two lions engaging in sexual intercourse, and goes on to include line-drawings (but not lion-drawings) of people doing the same.
So no, we do not editorially exclude images of sexual conduct. We -do- place them on articles whose focus is sexual conduct, for instance [[Sexual intercourse]], rather than on articles whose focus is the cell biology of reproduction or the course of pregnancy.
I agree with RK it is a matter of editorial decisions, in great part based on taste and consideration to the way our readers will appreciate the content proposed.
Hmmmm... another side comment on the reproduction matter... as a pregnant woman trying to find information on all the different stages of developement, I find Wikipedia teribly lacking information.
Ant
Karl A. Krueger a écrit:
On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 07:42:32AM -0800, Robert wrote:
Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape or form censorship.
I agree with you that this is not censorship. However, your description implies that we don't have such pictures at all.
The articles on [[fertilization]], [[pregnancy]], and so forth all link to [[Sexual intercourse]]. That article, as it so happens, starts out with a photograph of two lions engaging in sexual intercourse, and goes on to include line-drawings (but not lion-drawings) of people doing the same.
So no, we do not editorially exclude images of sexual conduct. We -do- place them on articles whose focus is sexual conduct, for instance [[Sexual intercourse]], rather than on articles whose focus is the cell biology of reproduction or the course of pregnancy.
I agree with RK it is a matter of editorial decisions, in great part based on taste and consideration to the way our readers will appreciate the content proposed.
Hmmmm... another side comment on the reproduction matter... as a pregnant woman trying to find information on all the different stages of developement, I find Wikipedia teribly lacking information.
Ant
Robert said:
Censorship is an act which prevents the free discussion of ideas. The term is really only meaningful when it comes to repressing ideas due to a social, religious or political agenda.
No, censorship just means removing something you don't want someone else to see. There's nothing wrong with it, in principle. We can and do censor Wikipedia--if we didn't it would be a real mess. But we should always discuss whether this or that kind of censorship is appropriate.