There is no issue of censorship involved in having the good sense and good taste to not automatically display graphic photos that are likely to be offensive or upsetting to large numbers of people.
There will always be difficult questions of where to draw the line, I suppose, but we solve that issue in other cases by "going meta", i.e. avoiding the controversy.
With most issues, the wiki process works perfectly fine. It is almost never "either/or" with the text of an article -- creative people can almost always find a way to compromise on a text that is different from either of two extreme positions.
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
That is the proposal that Anthere has proposed in this case, and that is what I support.
I do think that there are cases of photos that we ought to not even have on our site at all. Were it not for the extreme newsworthiness of this particular photo, and it's likely longterm political importance, I would argue for deleting it. This is not rotten.com.
I think that there is great validity to the concern for the family and for human dignity in general, with respect to photos of this nature.
--Jimbo
I know I am repeating myself, but in this special case it is not the readers who are at stake, but the photographed person, who in this case has no means to defend his rights to
-privacy -dignity -honour
So in this case the policy ought to be: personal human rights are above collective rights.
Pedro.
* Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com [2004-05-12]:
There is no issue of censorship involved in having the good sense and good taste to not automatically display graphic photos that are likely to be offensive or upsetting to large numbers of people.
There will always be difficult questions of where to draw the line, I suppose, but we solve that issue in other cases by "going meta", i.e. avoiding the controversy.
With most issues, the wiki process works perfectly fine. It is almost never "either/or" with the text of an article -- creative people can almost always find a way to compromise on a text that is different from either of two extreme positions.
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
That is the proposal that Anthere has proposed in this case, and that is what I support.
I do think that there are cases of photos that we ought to not even have on our site at all. Were it not for the extreme newsworthiness of this particular photo, and it's likely longterm political importance, I would argue for deleting it. This is not rotten.com.
I think that there is great validity to the concern for the family and for human dignity in general, with respect to photos of this nature.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I thank you Jimbo and Pedro and many others. I would prefer it deleted. But I understand that it may be important in some people opinions. So, I won't argue for it to be deleted at all of course.
ant
Jimmy Wales a écrit:
There is no issue of censorship involved in having the good sense and good taste to not automatically display graphic photos that are likely to be offensive or upsetting to large numbers of people.
There will always be difficult questions of where to draw the line, I suppose, but we solve that issue in other cases by "going meta", i.e. avoiding the controversy.
With most issues, the wiki process works perfectly fine. It is almost never "either/or" with the text of an article -- creative people can almost always find a way to compromise on a text that is different from either of two extreme positions.
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
That is the proposal that Anthere has proposed in this case, and that is what I support.
I do think that there are cases of photos that we ought to not even have on our site at all. Were it not for the extreme newsworthiness of this particular photo, and it's likely longterm political importance, I would argue for deleting it. This is not rotten.com.
I think that there is great validity to the concern for the family and for human dignity in general, with respect to photos of this nature.
--Jimbo
I am unconvinced that a photo of this nature adds anything to the article, or will remain that newsworthy. The incident is tragic, and documenting it is important, but a graphic picture of a severed head? Why? Mark
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
There is no issue of censorship involved in having the good sense and good taste to not automatically display graphic photos that are likely to be offensive or upsetting to large numbers of people.
There will always be difficult questions of where to draw the line, I suppose, but we solve that issue in other cases by "going meta", i.e. avoiding the controversy.
With most issues, the wiki process works perfectly fine. It is almost never "either/or" with the text of an article -- creative people can almost always find a way to compromise on a text that is different from either of two extreme positions.
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
That is the proposal that Anthere has proposed in this case, and that is what I support.
I do think that there are cases of photos that we ought to not even have on our site at all. Were it not for the extreme newsworthiness of this particular photo, and it's likely longterm political importance, I would argue for deleting it. This is not rotten.com.
I think that there is great validity to the concern for the family and for human dignity in general, with respect to photos of this nature.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Mark Richards wrote:
I am unconvinced that a photo of this nature adds anything to the article, or will remain that newsworthy. The incident is tragic, and documenting it is important, but a graphic picture of a severed head? Why?
I think this is a legitimate question, and I'm inclined to agree with you. But I don't think we could get a consensus to simply delete it, I *know* we won't get a consensus to show it up front on the page, but I *do* think we can get a consensus to have it behind a link.
It's a compromise. There are legitimate (but perhaps mistaken) arguments for showing it right up front. There are legitimate (but perhaps mistaken) arguments for deleting it. The middle ground is likely to be more satisfactory to all sides than either of the endpoints.
If I were writing my own encyclopedia article on my own website, I would not include the picture. I think it's in poor taste. But at Wikipedia, I'm committed to the principle of seeking consensus, and I think "behind a link" has the best chance at consensus.
--Jimbo
Mark Richards wrote:
I am unconvinced that a photo of this nature adds anything to the article, or will remain that newsworthy. The incident is tragic, and documenting it is important, but a graphic picture of a severed head? Why?
Well, the same could be said of many pictures. We could say "he was beheaded", or we could illustrate it, or we could do both. I see it as fairly similar to the Abu Ghraib pictures, where technically speaking we could convey the same information with words (we could describe what exactly is going on in the pictures instead of showing them), but that serves as a somewhat euphemistic substitute for showing the actual images. I do think it's okay to do that with the severed head though, but still include a link to the image.
This isn't the only image of a dead person on Wikipedia, for what it's worth. There's a fairly close-up and easily-identifiable photograph of John F. Kennedy's corpse on that page, and a photograph on Abu Ghraib of a prisoners' corpse packed in ice, with a face only slightly obscured by a bandage.
-Mark
I rarely comment anymore. But in this case I would just throw this out.
There is a very famous photo of a South Vietnamese officer blowing off the head of a Viet Cong fighter on a Saigon street. This is quite offensive to view but it is nonetheless one of the most important photos of the last 35 years. Would you want this famous picture to be pushed out of an article on Vietnam due to its terrible content?
Similarly, there is a ghastly photo of a naked young child running down a road with severe burns from napalm. A horrible picture, but one that should not be pushed aside.
The bodies of babies at My Lai are another example.
And finally, there are horrible photos of Dachau and Auschwitz that make this photo look like nothing.
The fact is that Al-Qaeda cut off this young mans head in a gruesome manner. It is sometimes more necessary to know a horrible truth for what it is than it is to protect our sensibilities.
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Mark Gerdes wrote:
There is a very famous photo of a South Vietnamese officer blowing off the head of a Viet Cong fighter on a Saigon street. This is quite offensive to view but it is nonetheless one of the most important photos of the last 35 years. Would you want this famous picture to be pushed out of an article on Vietnam due to its terrible content?
Similarly, there is a ghastly photo of a naked young child running down a road with severe burns from napalm. A horrible picture, but one that should not be pushed aside.
Both of those pictures had already crossed my mind as I was considering this subject.
Ec
As for me, I have the memory of an asian girl child, engulfed in stormy and muddy water after a flood, having a hand up for help, holding herself to a branch or something similar with the other hand, not to go under the water. The picture of this girl went all over the world. I hope the journalist who got the money for the picture of this dying girl, made good use of it.
Ray Saintonge a écrit:
Mark Gerdes wrote:
There is a very famous photo of a South Vietnamese officer blowing off the head of a Viet Cong fighter on a Saigon street. This is quite offensive to view but it is nonetheless one of the most important photos of the last 35 years. Would you want this famous picture to be pushed out of an article on Vietnam due to its terrible content? Similarly, there is a ghastly photo of a naked young child running down a road with severe burns from napalm. A horrible picture, but one that should not be pushed aside.
Both of those pictures had already crossed my mind as I was considering this subject.
Ec
Good point, well made. Mark R.
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Mark Gerdes wrote:
There is a very famous photo of a South Vietnamese officer blowing off the head of a Viet Cong fighter
on
a Saigon street. This is quite offensive to view
but
it is nonetheless one of the most important photos
of
the last 35 years. Would you want this famous
picture
to be pushed out of an article on Vietnam due to
its
terrible content?
Similarly, there is a ghastly photo of a naked
young
child running down a road with severe burns from napalm. A horrible picture, but one that should
not
be pushed aside.
Both of those pictures had already crossed my mind as I was considering this subject.
Ec
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I actually just looked at this image now, and I must say it's not really nearly as gruesome as I had expected. It's a fairly small and grainy photo, and a minimum of blood or gore is visible. It's disturbing in a conceptual sense primarily, in that the executioner is triumphantly holding up the head as a trophy. I'd say as far as potentially offensive photos go, this is far less graphic than a lot of what we have on Wikipedia. I had assumed otherwise simply because I hadn't actually looked at the image; as it stands now I'm not sure it shouldn't go inline, unless we adopt a fairly low threshold for offensiveness.
-Mark
On Wed, 12 May 2004 13:11:06 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards marich712000@yahoo.com wrote:
I am unconvinced that a photo of this nature adds anything to the article, or will remain that newsworthy. The incident is tragic, and documenting it is important, but a graphic picture of a severed head? Why?
Mark is talking sense here. And on the issue of my-own-two-cents... One of the nice things about Wikipedia, I have found, is that I can view an article on, say, [[shock site]]s without being shown the picture of the goatse man.
Is there any objection to having this and similar images linked besides the fact that it may (or may not) possibly be construed as POV or judgemental? I'll take a good dose of "being nice to the reader" over a theoretical and/or philisophical objection any day of the week.
~~~~ (that does not work inna email, darnit)
Jimmy-
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
If we make this official policy, we abandon NPOV for photos, for the reasons I have cited. Please refute my arguments or state clearly that you do want to abandon NPOV for photos.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
If we make this official policy, we abandon NPOV for photos, for the reasons I have cited. Please refute my arguments or state clearly that you do want to abandon NPOV for photos.
I disagree, and think you wish to abandon NPOV for photos.
You wish to adopt the principle that we should err on the side of showing photos, based on your personal point of view that people should not find things offensive that you do not find offensive. When there is disagreement, we should side with the "not offensive" camp.
For what it's worth, I think the majority of articles you have worked on on Wikipedia are similarly flawed, as your idea of NPOV, couched in rather pretentious language, is to promote your political ideology. This can be seen on things like [[Roman Catholicism]], which turn into long rants about birth control, with disingenuous edit summaries about "NPOV" (I don't like the Roman Catholic Church either, but that article is ridiculous).
-Mark
Delirium-
If we make this official policy, we abandon NPOV for photos, for the reasons I have cited. Please refute my arguments or state clearly that you do want to abandon NPOV for photos.
You wish to adopt the principle that we should err on the side of showing photos, based on your personal point of view that people should not find things offensive that you do not find offensive.
Not at all. I find many photos of violence offensive but would still tolerate them if I was one out of 50 or 100 people who feels that way. Of course I am anti-censorship and my arguments and rationalizations will lean towards this (just like yours will lean towards a more mainstream view), but to imply that they are therefore wrong would be an ad hominem logical fallacy.
You have not offered a single plausible counter-argument on why, for example, this would be any different from moving criticisms of Mother Teresa to a separate page if the majority does not like to read about them.
For what it's worth, I think the majority of articles you have worked on on Wikipedia are similarly flawed, as your idea of NPOV, couched in rather pretentious language, is to promote your political ideology.
<snip>
I'll let your personal attack speak for itself.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
You have not offered a single plausible counter-argument on why, for example, this would be any different from moving criticisms of Mother Teresa to a separate page if the majority does not like to read about them.
I think the primary difference is that photos can be shocking, while text generally isn't. If the [[Mother Theresa]] article *did* include truly shocking text, like referring to her with epithets of some sort, that would be a problem, but there are very few cases where an article can be both highly shocking and even close to neutral. Perhaps the closest would be quoting someone else who used an epithet, if the quote happened to be relevant (perhaps quoting someone who said disparaging things about [[Jesus]] or [[Mohammad]] or something), but I haven't run across a case where anyone tried to insert such quotes.
Photos, however, are pretty easy to make shocking. I might wish to read an article about [[clitoris]], for example, but find it rather difficult to do so when there is a photograph of a woman spreading open her genitalia with her fingers in the sidebar.
None of this is "shocking" meant in a conceptual sense, but in a visceral sense---the photos of the prisoner standing on a box with wires on his hands are conceptually shocking, but should obviously stay, and I think the criticisms of Mother Theresa are more analogous to that sort of shocking, if they're analogous to any sort of shocking photos.
For what it's worth, I usually find myself on the opposite side of this debate, as most people in the US at least take a more restrictive view of what should be permitted on things like TV and radio than I do. If anyone were arguing we *remove* these photographs entirely, I would find that problematic; it's just being in-your-face about them that I find unnecessary.
-Mark
Delirium-
I think the primary difference is that photos can be shocking, while text generally isn't.
That very much depends on your definition of shocking. Blasphemy laws are still on the books even in liberal European countries, including Germany. I have a copy here of an anti-clerical book called the "Pfaffenspiegel" by Otto von Corvin. My edition was published in 1996. It is in fact a censored edition according to Article 166 of the German criminal code, based on a verdict from 1927 which apparently remains in effect. I have through a friend acquired an uncensored (19th century) copy of the same book and the censored passages in question are fairly harmless in comparison with the rest of the book.
The point is that offense is in the eye of the beholder. Of course an openly held anti-blasphemy point of view would be quickly ridiculed and rejected. However, the hypothetical question of whether to split away the criticisms of Mother Teresa is not so hypothetical at all; there was even an edit war and a poll about it. Some made arguments, others just split away the criticisms without discussion or removed it entirely (and edit warred about it).
If a simple majority (for example) would be sufficient to get "offensive" material moved away, it would be fairly easy for a group of people -- even within Wikipedia -- to organize and win a vote on the matter (well, at least when I'm not watching). Supported by policy, these people would argue that even if the text is not offensive to non-believers, those non- believers will have to admit that it is clearly offensive to any devout Catholic or admirer of Mother Teresa, and surely linking to it is no big loss. Given that this almost happened even *without* an offensive content policy, it is not hard to imagine that it would have quickly happened with such a policy in place.
While it is true that text is generally considered less offensive than images, I can think of many other articles where such a policy would have an effect, specifically those dealing with violence and religion. Now you can say that this effect is in fact desirable and necessary, on text as well as on images. But it is the effective end of the NPOV idea.
If the [[Mother Theresa]] article *did* include truly shocking text, like referring to her with epithets of some sort,
Christopher Hitchens called his movie about her "Hell's Angel" and originally wanted to call it "Sacred Cow". Would mentioning this, in attributed form, be offensive to some? You bet.
Photos, however, are pretty easy to make shocking. I might wish to read an article about [[clitoris]], for example, but find it rather difficult to do so when there is a photograph of a woman spreading open her genitalia with her fingers in the sidebar.
I still fail to see a plausible situation where you want to read an article about genitalia but are unprepared to see a small thumbnail image. Nevertheless, I would support a "hide images" button which would make all images on a page invisible. That would be fairly easy to implement.
Regards,
Erik
On May 12, 2004, at 5:33 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
You have not offered a single plausible counter-argument on why, for example, this would be any different from moving criticisms of Mother Teresa to a separate page if the majority does not like to read about them.
Fair enough. I would say that the primary difference between text and image in this case is that text can be skimmed and skipped. It is *much* harder to avoid an image, especially an image one finds disturbing or offensive.
Peter
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Peter Jaros wrote:
On May 12, 2004, at 5:33 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
You have not offered a single plausible counter-argument on why, for example, this would be any different from moving criticisms of Mother Teresa to a separate page if the majority does not like to read about them.
Fair enough. I would say that the primary difference between text and image in this case is that text can be skimmed and skipped. It is *much* harder to avoid an image, especially an image one finds disturbing or offensive.
Text can also be edited to change nuances. Where in a longer text some would call a national leader a "dictator" it is easy to change that term to "president". We can't make that sort of change in a photograph.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Text can also be edited to change nuances. Where in a longer text some would call a national leader a "dictator" it is easy to change that term to "president". We can't make that sort of change in a photograph.
In hopes of reaching towards common ground here, I think that all sides to this discussion can agree that this is really the essence of the problem with images, as opposed to text. With text, we generally have a wide range of options. It's almost never really "either/or".
Take for example the [[Mother Theresa]] article. That's one which was hard fought for a long time, but which has since stabilized in a form acceptable to all sides, as evidenced by the fact that it has seen only minor changes for a couple of months.
With photos, our range of creative options to resolve conflict is more limited. In some cases, we can change the photograph itself. This will be true mostly for photos of generic concepts, and a lot less true for newsworthy photos, and virtually impossible for photos that are themselves of historical importance.
And so, this is what poses the problem. As our range of options is limited, it is harder to find one which is acceptable to almost everyone.
I do think, though, that in most cases, the option that is going to be most widely acceptable to all sides is to show the potentially offensive image, but behind a link with appropriate warnings.
I am trying hard to understand why Erik thinks it is neutral to have a policy that we always force people to show potentially offensive images within the article, except in the extraordinary case where 95% are opposed. I do not understand how he thinks that showing an image is neutral to both sides of the dispute, when for example 70% are opposed to it.
--Jimbo
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
If we make this official policy, we abandon NPOV for photos, for the reasons I have cited. Please refute my arguments or state clearly that you do want to abandon NPOV for photos.
I do not agree that this is an abandonment of NPOV at all. Perhaps you have misunderstood what I am saying? I will try to be more clear.
"The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree. Of course, 100% agreement is not possible; there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view. We can only seek a type of writing that is agreeable to essentially rational people who may differ on particular points." That's the original paragraph that dates from when I coined the term, I'm pretty sure.
With text, there are a huge number of options available to us to seek a presentation such that "both supporters and opponents can agree".
With specfic images, our range of options is nearly always more limited. We can show the image on the page. We can show the image behind a link. We can delete the image entirely. In some cases, but probably not the most interesting or controversial ones, we can modify the image.
With such a limited range of options, the one that is most likely to be satisfactory to both supporters and opponents is to keep the image but place it behind a link, with appropriate warnings.
This is not a retreat from NPOV, it is the essence of NPOV.
It is true that some extreme fanatics may say that a photo of X must be shown immediately at the top of an article, or that photos of X must not be shown at all. "100% agreement is not possible; there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view."
But reasonable people will, I believe, in most cases agree that the "behind a link" is a sensible compromise.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
"The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree.
Exactly. If you take a look at Talk:Clitoris/Image discussion, you will see that all options were offered, and the option of *showing the photo inline* (instead of just a link) got the most votes of all. So your belief that people will readily accept hiding "offensive" images behind links is clearly wrong; many people (including myself) perceive this as an endorsement of a pro-censorship POV and are therefore against it. Even if these people were in the minority, there would hardly be any consensus on the matter.
What I can agree on, on the basis of the Nick Berg poll, is this: If there is 95-100% agreement that an image is offensive, or that it is offensive enough to others that it should be linked, then it should be linked. Currently there is one vote "offensive, but show"; this is the kind of vote which I can agree we can ignore. Removing it, we have 2 in favor of showing inline with 27 in favor of linking. That's still below 95%, but I believe with a large enough sample and a clear policy we would get there (if not, I would be willing to lower the threshold to 90%).
So it appears that you believe that there will be consensus in cases where there clearly won't; that's fine, as long as we agree that consensus is a requirement for hiding an image behind a link.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Exactly. If you take a look at Talk:Clitoris/Image discussion, you will see that all options were offered, and the option of *showing the photo inline* (instead of just a link) got the most votes of all.
This shows me that you are right that majority vote is not the right way to determine the correct result. Majority vote is very frequently not helpful in finding or determining NPOV.
(Some advanced voting algorithms probably do a much better job of helping to find or determine a consensus, of course.)
So your belief that people will readily accept hiding "offensive" images behind links is clearly wrong; many people (including myself) perceive this as an endorsement of a pro-censorship POV and are therefore against it. Even if these people were in the minority, there would hardly be any consensus on the matter.
I doubt very much that in most cases, the people who would like to show the photo inline are so unreasonable as to absolutely insist that only their own viewpoint is the correct one, and that no compromise is possible.
So it appears that you believe that there will be consensus in cases where there clearly won't; that's fine, as long as we agree that consensus is a requirement for hiding an image behind a link.
Well, of course I can agree to that, since consensus is the requirement for everything that we do. "Showing the image" can hold no privileged position, "hiding the image behind a link" can hold no privileged position, "delete the image" can hold no privileged position.
I think I see where we disagree now. Your position is that we should show the image in all cases unless 95% of the people think it should not be shown, and that this should be a policy which overrides consensus and compromise. That's a perfectly acceptable position to hold, but will you agree that it would amount to abandoning NPOV for pictures and substituting instead a policy that most matches your own (and my own, I should add!) views about what should be shown?
With text, I feel that any form of voting is almost always inferior to creatively solving the problem with repeated revision of the text.
If there are cases where voting is absolutely necessary, and if I'm forced to say exactly what it means to have NPOV consensus, the answer surely can't be "NPOV is my own preferred position unless 95% of the people disagree with me."
Instead, the exact meaning of consensus in a voting situation has to be something like Condorcet, Approval voting, Instant Runoff or the like.
I think if we re-ran the vote on clitoris, with the same voters participating, but did it as a Condorcet, then "linking to the image" would be the clear winner by a longshot. Do you disagree? Or, if you do disagree, then let me suppose that I'm wrong, and ask another question: do you agree with me that going with the Condorcet winner would be the best available option?
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
Erik Moeller wrote:
Exactly. If you take a look at Talk:Clitoris/Image discussion, you will see that all options were offered, and the option of *showing the photo inline* (instead of just a link) got the most votes of all.
This shows me that you are right that majority vote is not the right way to determine the correct result.
:-) Interesting. What would you say if the voters had voted differently?
I doubt very much that in most cases, the people who would like to show the photo inline are so unreasonable as to absolutely insist that only their own viewpoint is the correct one,
It's not about whose viewpoint is correct. It's about not implicitly and selectively endorsing the view that the image is offensive. If all people agree that the image is sufficiently offensive to hide it, then hiding it is not the expression of an opinion but the expression of a fact. If, however, only some people feel that way and others do not, then the image should not be hidden.
Aside from any NPOV issues with the image itself (is it manipulative? singled out? fake? etc.), an image is a *fact*. Nobody disputes that Lynndie England held a prisoner in Abu Ghraib on a leash. What some people claim is that this particular image in this particular article should not be shown inline because it is offensive to them. If we do this, then we *selectively* endorse this point of view. If we selectively show it, we endorse the opposite view. If we show all images where there is no consensus that they are offensive, we endorse *no* point of view.
Now you appear to argue that by doing that we make some people unhappy, hence we violate NPOV. I'm sure the Mother Teresa article will also make some people unhappy, but I'm hardly willing to make them happier by removing or hiding some inconvenient facts. Now who is responsible for the unhappiness on that article -- me, for not being willing to censor an article, or those who seek to hide or remove information without just cause? Am I obligated to seek compromise even when that implies removing or hiding facts which nobody disputes? I do not believe this to be the spirit of NPOV, and if it was your original idea, then your original idea was wrong.
NPOV is about *neutrality*, not about transforming Wikipedia into a real world version of Fahrenheit 451. NPOV is about expressing facts as facts and opinions as opinions. We should always strive to find solutions that are acceptable to all, but not at the expense of truth or neutrality. To me, it appears you are mixing different concepts - neutrality, WikiLove, consensus, compromise - into one big messy substance that you are spreading all over the place. That is legitimate, but that substance is not the essence of NPOV, it is the essence of Wikipedia.
Now how do we express WikiLove and the quest for compromise on this issue? I'll accept that by showing the images, one could claim that we are making an implicit claim that such images are acceptable. That is a false claim, but it is an easy misunderstanding of NPOV. That's why I'm perfectly willing to tolerate things like disclaimers, and to add a "Hide images" feature to the software. I'm also willing to accept that images which are offensive to a substantial majority should not be shown in the intro, so that the disclaimer can be viewed and the user can make an informed decision about viewing the images. It seems to me that I am willing to make a lot of concessions to a point of view that is not my own.
I am not willing to accept that we should hide certain images because a substantial majority believes they may be offensive, as I view this as completely against NPOV, an implicit endorsement of the majority point of view.
I think I see where we disagree now. Your position is that we should show the image in all cases unless 95% of the people think it should not be shown, and that this should be a policy which overrides consensus and compromise.
Um, no, I think that when 95% of the people think it should not be shown, that *is* a consensus.
That's a perfectly acceptable position to hold, but will you agree that it would amount to abandoning NPOV
Absolutely not. It is the essence of NPOV. N stands for Neutrality.
With text, I feel that any form of voting is almost always inferior to creatively solving the problem with repeated revision of the text.
"Creative solving" often means edit wars. I'd prefer discussing the matter instead. But I can agree that votes should only be used if no consensus can be found. If other people are more willing to abandon neutrality than I am, I cannot stop them. However, in any discussion in which I am involved I will forcefully argue for respecting our policy.
Instead, the exact meaning of consensus in a voting situation has to be something like Condorcet, Approval voting, Instant Runoff or the like.
The consensus building should happen through the discussion, not through the voting system. Letting a vote automatically decide the most acceptable option is not a good way to work towards a *neutral* solution. It would, however, be a good way to work towards a general policy on the matter.
Regards,
Erik
On May 12, 2004, at 8:34 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
Aside from any NPOV issues with the image itself (is it manipulative? singled out? fake? etc.), an image is a *fact*. Nobody disputes that Lynndie England held a prisoner in Abu Ghraib on a leash. What some people claim is that this particular image in this particular article should not be shown inline because it is offensive to them. If we do this, then we *selectively* endorse this point of view. If we selectively show it, we endorse the opposite view. If we show all images where there is no consensus that they are offensive, we endorse *no* point of view.
Now you appear to argue that by doing that we make some people unhappy, hence we violate NPOV. I'm sure the Mother Teresa article will also make some people unhappy, but I'm hardly willing to make them happier by removing or hiding some inconvenient facts.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Images can be more than facts. They can evoke, as Delirium put it, a "visceral" response. That is beyond the academic and the factual. If a significant number of people would like to know the *facts* about a topic, but feel uncomfortable with seeing certain images, they should have that opportunity. It's not a right, it's an expression of WikiLove.
If people simply don't want to know certain *facts*, in text or in image, I agree that reworking articles to this end is a breakdown of NPOV. Allowing users to learn all the facts without an unwanted visceral reaction is just playing nice and making the Wikipedia more accessible.
Peter
-- ---<>--- -- A house without walls cannot fall. Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org -- ---<>--- --
Perter Jaros Wrote:
If people simply don't want to know certain *facts*, in text or in image, I agree that reworking articles to this end is a breakdown of NPOV. Allowing users to learn all the facts without an unwanted visceral reaction is just playing nice and making the Wikipedia more accessible.
Front Page? [[Shocking Subject]] See: [[Shocking Subject (With Photos)]] [[Shocking Subject (No Photos)]]
Suppressed Images? [[Shocking Subject]] [Enable Photos]
Linked Images:
[[Shocking Subject]] [[Socking Subject Image Gallery]]
Either would be OK with me.
I am not even looking at consistency. I think each article needs to be treated on a case by case basis for text already, format-wise. Likewise images can be dealt with on a case by case basis.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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Erik:
How would you feel if the linked images had a disclaimer saying something to this effect:
The following images have been placed on a separate page because they MAY be consiered disturbing and/or offensive. It is Wikipedia policy not to take a position on whether the following images are in fact disturbing or offensive or not (See [[Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View]]). However, to avoid disturbing or offending those users to whom the images are disturbing or offensive, they have been placed on a separate page.
Would that be an satisfactorily explicit endorsement of NPOV while at the same time preventing unnecessary offense?
- David
Erik Moeller wrote:
I think I see where we disagree now. Your position is that we should show the image in all cases unless 95% of the people think it should not be shown, and that this should be a policy which overrides consensus and compromise.
Um, no, I think that when 95% of the people think it should not be shown, that *is* a consensus.
By your standards then, we will show all images, no matter how offensive, with possibly goatse and little else being "censored".
Note that the Nick Berg decapitation image now only has 81% support for not putting it inline, so by not having it inline we are, by your argument, catering to the non-neutral majority POV that images of decapitated heads should not be displayed.
-Mark
Delirium-
Note that the Nick Berg decapitation image now only has 81% support for not putting it inline, so by not having it inline we are, by your argument, catering to the non-neutral majority POV that images of decapitated heads should not be displayed.
There is certainly no consensus for removing it on grounds of offensiveness alone; you yourself voted against that option. Since you find the image of the decapitated head so important, how do you feel about the compromise I have proposed on the talk page?
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
Erik Moeller wrote:
Exactly. If you take a look at Talk:Clitoris/Image discussion, you will see that all options were offered, and the option of *showing the photo inline* (instead of just a link) got the most votes of all.
This shows me that you are right that majority vote is not the right way to determine the correct result.
:-) Interesting. What would you say if the voters had voted differently?
Well, to be clear. The way that I would vote is something like this, ranking my own preferences for the articles [[clitoris]] and [[penis]]q:
1. "medical" photo/diagram on the page 2. link to "medical" photo/diagram 3. no photo at all 4. any variant of a 'porno' style photo
That's the way I would vote, and quite possibly is the way you would vote as well. But I do not think that our #1 choice would win, because I think that #2 would win. And I would be fine with that, I think it's a perfectly acceptable compromise.
It's not about whose viewpoint is correct. It's about not implicitly and selectively endorsing the view that the image is offensive.
It's also about not implicitly and selectively endorsing the view that the image is *not* offensive. We can't as a matter of NPOV policy automatically privilege either position.
If we do this, then we *selectively* endorse this point of view. If we selectively show it, we endorse the opposite view. If we show all images where there is no consensus that they are offensive, we endorse *no* point of view.
I don't agree with this. This is not "no point of view" -- it is a specific and highly undesirable (for most people) point of view that says that we're going to shove images down the readers throat unless they are so bad that 95% of the editors don't like them.
The articles are supposed to reflect consensus and compromise among editors with many different perspectives. If there's a case where, say, 70% of the people think that an image should not be shown, then how can we argue with a straight face that the article is neutral and satisfactory to both opponents and advocates? We can't.
That's just a complete abandonment of the principles of wiki editing in favor of a decree that Wikipedia ought to publish pictures even when consensus does not support it, even when there is significant dispute.
I think I see where we disagree now. Your position is that we should show the image in all cases unless 95% of the people think it should not be shown, and that this should be a policy which overrides consensus and compromise.
Um, no, I think that when 95% of the people think it should not be shown, that *is* a consensus.
But what of the case where 70% think it should not be shown, 30% think that it should be shown? What of the case where if we did a Condorcet vote, "show it behind a link" would be the clear winner? What of the case where almost everyone indicates a preference one way or the other (split 70%/30%) but also notes that putting it behind a link would be an acceptable compromise?
In such a case, there would be a consensus for putting it behind a link, and you'd still say that we should override consensus to push your own so-called "anti-censorship" point of view.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
That's the way I would vote, and quite possibly is the way you would vote as well.
Yes, but only because the voting system would force me to rank my choices like that, even if I find only one of them to be in compliance with our policy.
It's not about whose viewpoint is correct. It's about not implicitly and selectively endorsing the view that the image is offensive.
It's also about not implicitly and selectively endorsing the view that the image is *not* offensive.
True. I have already addressed this argument. We don't do that because we aren't selective.
We can't as a matter of NPOV policy automatically privilege either position.
There are no NPOV issues at all as long as we don't take a position. There are issues of Wikiquette, WikiLove etc., I agree with you on that point. But it's not an NPOV issue if we don't say "Look at *this* image, but don't look at *this* image!" (nor would it be an NPOV issue if we said "Don't look at *any* image until you explicitly request it", but most people would find that option unacceptable for an encyclopedia).
In order to address the issue of expressing *respect* for the other point of view (which is a part of Wikiquette), I have no problem with - a disclaimer at the beginning of the page for pages that contain images widely considered offensive - a "hide all images link" next to it. - moving images widely considered offensive to a point where they aren't immediately visible, so that the reader has a fair opportunity to hide them - allowing a user preference to hide such images by default when viewing a page - until these features are all in place, setting the threshold lower (70- 80%) to avoid offense
I'd say I'm willing to make quite a few concessions here, and I agree that such concessions are required by policy. However, it is not the NPOV policy, it is Wikiquette. This is also a very important policy for helping people to work together, and it would be foolish and wrong to point to neutrality as a justification for not searching compromises. However, it would also be foolish to treat NPOV as something it isn't, which could very well lead us down a road where we compromise on matters which we shouldn't compromise on (namely the very neutrality of our encyclopedia).
I don't agree with this. This is not "no point of view" -- it is a specific and highly undesirable (for most people) point of view that says that we're going to shove images down the readers throat unless they are so bad that 95% of the editors don't like them.
Hm, that's an interesting claim. On the basis of which poll do you claim that most people don't want to adopt this proposed policy, with and/or without the above additional measures?
Yes, it *is* a point of view to say that we show all images by default, however, it is not a POV pertaining to any individual article, just like any other policy is itself a point of view about how to build an encyclopedia, including the NPOV policy itself. The key point is that it is not in violation of said NPOV policy, which does not say "We must hold no opinions about how to build an encyclopedia" (which would be nonsensical) but which does say that articles must not endorse specific opinions. By going with whatever the majority prefers, we would do that. By showing all images by default we don't.
The articles are supposed to reflect consensus and compromise among editors with many different perspectives. If there's a case where, say, 70% of the people think that an image should not be shown, then how can we argue with a straight face that the article is neutral and satisfactory to both opponents and advocates?
If, say, 70% of the people think that the criticisms of Mother Teresa are "too dominant", how can we argue with a straight face that the article is neutral? Simple. By looking at the neutral point of view policy, which is not about majorities, but about certain ways to express facts and opinions neutrally. Now, I agree with you entirely on the need to search compromise, and that compromise may include temporary transgressions against the spirit and letter of the actual NPOV policy. But to say that an article must make the majority happy to be neutral is a nonsensical claim. In fact, when we *have* to choose between being nice and being neutral, being neutral should always come out on top.
But what of the case where 70% think it should not be shown, 30% think that it should be shown? What of the case where if we did a Condorcet vote, "show it behind a link" would be the clear winner?
You are searching compromise in the wrong department. You want to make it mandatory to compromise on our neutrality, while I seek ways to preserve neutrality while still making all sides of the dispute happy. Your solution is the easy way out and a good way to "keep the peace", but it is not a good way to find true neutrality. Instead, please help me in implementing and advocating solutions which make available additional *choices* to end users, so that we don't have to simply go with whatever the majority currently prefers.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
But it's not an NPOV issue if we don't say "Look at *this* image, but don't look at *this* image!" (nor would it be an NPOV issue if we said "Don't look at *any* image until you explicitly request it", but most people would find that option unacceptable for an encyclopedia).
Possibly you've already addressed this, so please be gentle with me as I try to understand.
Apply the same logic above to any particular _text_ in Wikipedia. Should we have a policy that no text should be deleted, because it is inherently POV to say "Look at *this* text, but don't look at *this* text"?
I don't agree with this. This is not "no point of view" -- it is a specific and highly undesirable (for most people) point of view that says that we're going to shove images down the readers throat unless they are so bad that 95% of the editors don't like them.
Hm, that's an interesting claim. On the basis of which poll do you claim that most people don't want to adopt this proposed policy, with and/or without the above additional measures?
It's my general sense of this discussion, and a prediction based on what I know of Wikipedians generally. Perhaps I'm wrong. In reading all the comments so far, I think that most people seem to think that in borderline cases, an acceptable compromise is to keep the image, but behind a link.
If, say, 70% of the people think that the criticisms of Mother Teresa are "too dominant", how can we argue with a straight face that the article is neutral? Simple. By looking at the neutral point of view policy, which is not about majorities, but about certain ways to express facts and opinions neutrally.
NPOV is not about majorities, but it *is* a social concept. (I note that my original exposition of NPOV, which I still regard as policy, has been edited out of the Wikipedia: Neutral Point of View article.)
The Wiki software model, not majority vote, drives things. If 1 person right this minute thinks that the criticisms of Mother Theresa are "too dominant" in the article (which is surely possible as a valid criticism of any article), then they can go and change it. Of course, their change is also going to have to satisfy you, which may be difficult of course, but you aren't an irrational ideologue, and so long as they aren't either, then our experience shows that positive change is possible in virtually all cases.
NPOV is not the same as "true" or "objective"; it is a subset of what is true and objective. It is a social concept first and foremost, even though the current presentation on Wikipedia has obscured that.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
Apply the same logic above to any particular _text_ in Wikipedia. Should we have a policy that no text should be deleted, because it is inherently POV to say "Look at *this* text, but don't look at *this* text"?
No, because the question is not about whether the image of Nick Berg's head, or any other, should be removed *per se*. The question is whether it should be removed or hidden because of the *offense* it may cause. We may still argue to remove it for other reasons - copyright, usefulness, context, quality .. (I think aside from its offense, there is a significant lack of usefulness in case of the Nick Berg image, for example.)
The same of course applies to text. It would be inherently POV to say "This text must be moved to a separate page because I find it highly offensive" unless the offense is so obvious and so blatant that everyone shares it or respects it. But it would be perfectly legitimate to say about the same text: "This has nothing to do with the subject of this article. It should be summarized and expanded elsewhere." Or: "This particular phrasing, while correct, is needlessly offensive. I have suggested a different wording which is also correct and doesn't have that problem." In fact working towards finding compromises here, as long as they don't have a negative effect on the neutrality of the article, is a requirement for working together.
It's my general sense of this discussion, and a prediction based on what I know of Wikipedians generally. Perhaps I'm wrong. In reading all the comments so far, I think that most people seem to think that in borderline cases, an acceptable compromise is to keep the image, but behind a link.
So far no additional options have been offered in these discussions, such as the technological ones which I have suggested, and the fact that people support such compromises does not mean that they wouldn't support a policy which effectively does not require them.
NPOV is not about majorities, but it *is* a social concept. (I note that my original exposition of NPOV, which I still regard as policy, has been edited out of the Wikipedia: Neutral Point of View article.)
Not by me, but I appreciate that. I think you are mixing different concepts and that this isn't beneficial to the discussion. It's typical for you - when you send out your "Let's all be nice" messages, they are often a blur of different ideas in your head, the idea to create an encyclopedia, the idea to work together in peace, the idea to not endorse specific points of view .. Other people have since taken these ideas, which are all brilliant, and have developed them into coherent, separate policies and goals which all need to be met when working on articles.
The need to work towards compromise *is* an essential component of Wikipedia policy, but it has its own name - Wikiquette. By blurring the concepts we risk sacrificing one for the other. I hope that you won't make an official proclamation to enforce such a blurring of different goals. There are enough problems with NPOV as it is (the policy is unclear on many key points). It would effectively be a step backwards in the evolution of Wikipedia.
While I think that the NPOV policy does not allow for "objective truth", I strongly believe in a puristic interpretation of the policy itself and yes, in the goal (the ideal, as Cunctator put it) of reaching true *neutrality* on issues. That does not mean that I want to abandon Wikiquette, not at all, but I want it to be treated as a separate goal which can often be reached by different means. If only one of them can be reached (which will rarely but sometimes be the case), I believe our mission as an encylopedia requires us to go for being neutral over being nice.
Ideally we should reach a state of stability on an article not through attrition (as in the case of MT) but through being able to say: "Look, this is our policy. If these facts about Scientology / the Mormons / Martha Stewart are correct, they can be included. We may try to find ways to present them in such a way that they are more acceptable to you, but only if this does not have an impact on the neutrality of the article." If people can't work within such a framework, I think they shouldn't work on Wikipedia at all. Let's not forget that we are first and foremost an encyclopedia.
Regards,
Erik
On May 12, 2004, at 7:01 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
Exactly. If you take a look at Talk:Clitoris/Image discussion, you will see that all options were offered, and the option of *showing the photo inline* (instead of just a link) got the most votes of all.
This shows me that you are right that majority vote is not the right way to determine the correct result. Majority vote is very frequently not helpful in finding or determining NPOV.
Indeed, this is MPOV: Majority Point of View. The two are only the same if there is a truly *overwhelming* majority. Otherwise, NPOV is a meta-wise compromise, so to speak.
Peter
-- ---<>--- -- A house without walls cannot fall. Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org -- ---<>--- --
Erik Moeller wrote:
What I can agree on, on the basis of the Nick Berg poll, is this: If there is 95-100% agreement that an image is offensive, or that it is offensive enough to others that it should be linked, then it should be linked. Currently there is one vote "offensive, but show"; this is the kind of vote which I can agree we can ignore. Removing it, we have 2 in favor of showing inline with 27 in favor of linking. That's still below 95%, but I believe with a large enough sample and a clear policy we would get there (if not, I would be willing to lower the threshold to 90%).
Well, it's now at 5 in favor of inline, and 28 in favor of linking, a mere 84%.
-Mark
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
With photos, the "show" versus "don't show" really is an "either/or", though. The only possible compromise, and one which I think will almost always work just fine, is to *link* to the picture, with suitable warnings, and leave it at that.
If we make this official policy, we abandon NPOV for photos, for the reasons I have cited. Please refute my arguments or state clearly that you do want to abandon NPOV for photos.
One more thing that I wanted to add is that I do not in any way agree with the view that "majority vote" is a proper means for making decisions about this sort of thing. On that point, Erik and I agree completely -- I'm actually not sure where he thinks we disagree.
I think that in almost all cases, the compromise that's possible between the "show" and "don't show" parties to a dispute is to put the image behind a link with suitable warnings. That doesn't censor it, it's available, but it's also not "in your face" for people who choose not to click.
I don't think this rule leads to any strange consequences for ordinary images.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
One more thing that I wanted to add is that I do not in any way agree with the view that "majority vote" is a proper means for making decisions about this sort of thing. On that point, Erik and I agree completely -- I'm actually not sure where he thinks we disagree.
I'm glad to hear this. Majorities can sometimes use the result of a vote as an excuse to stop seeking compromise.
I think that in almost all cases, the compromise that's possible between the "show" and "don't show" parties to a dispute is to put the image behind a link with suitable warnings. That doesn't censor it, it's available, but it's also not "in your face" for people who choose not to click.
I don't think this rule leads to any strange consequences for ordinary images.
An option to hide all images is still useful, but that has nothing to do with offensiveness. It would be welcome by people with slow internet connections as we keep getting away from plain vanilla text articles.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
An option to hide all images is still useful, but that has nothing to do with offensiveness. It would be welcome by people with slow internet connections as we keep getting away from plain vanilla text articles.
I agree with this, it does sound like a useful option. And I, too, don't think that it does anything at all for us in the discussion of disputed images.
If someone says "Gee, I'd like to be able to read an article about the Nick Berg situation without having to look at the actual picture unless I choose to do so" then responding with: "Fine, you may turn off every single image in Wikipedia" doesn't sound helpful to me. I doubt if many of the people who have a preference against looking at severed heads are going to be satisfied with that answer.
--Jimbo
On Thu, 13 May 2004 07:02:04 -0700, Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
If someone says "Gee, I'd like to be able to read an article about the Nick Berg situation without having to look at the actual picture unless I choose to do so" then responding with: "Fine, you may turn off every single image in Wikipedia" doesn't sound helpful to me. I doubt if many of the people who have a preference against looking at severed heads are going to be satisfied with that answer.
The man talks sense once again. Wikipedia is great in that I can view a page about any number of shock sites without seeing the actual image.
I still have yet to discover any *practical* reasons why the image must remain in the article. It's fairly clear, in this case at least, that many, many people find it offensive, and this is a good practical reason to link instead of showing the image. On the other hand, we see several objections to linking along the lines of "it could be construed as censorship" or "it could be construed as POV" et cetera. No one even argued that it would be excessively inconvenient or anything like that...
I view images as a convenience to the reader. When they are offensive to a significant number of readers, they should not be immediately displayed. Even if that number isn't a majority, if (say) even a third of the population is disturbed by the mere sight of the image- why would we NOT want to link instead of embed?
Then there's the matter of "offensive". I mean this more in the gut-reaction sense of "oh my god that is HORRIBLE!" or "eww, gross, why are they showing that?"- perhaps "disturbing" or "disgusting" would be more accurate. I would imagine that many people would have philisophical objections to stuff portrayed in images (think Bush, Gore, Image:Angelab.jpg, other related issues... do we have any pictures of flag burnings, perhaps?) I think it would be rather obvious that it's the "disgusting" and objectionable sort of images which we would attempt to obscure rather than the ones which are philisophically/politically/etc disagreeable.
Wisdom in a private IRC conversation: <CimonAvaro> I think the only thing to do is to cool things down, and later, when the dust has settled, get serious about what our _fundamental_ policy with images should be, beyond copyright concerns. We (including you), can't see this clearly while staring at Bergs head.
Fennec Foxen wrote:
Wisdom in a private IRC conversation: <CimonAvaro> I think the only thing to do is to cool things down, and later, when the dust has settled, get serious about what our _fundamental_ policy with images should be, beyond copyright concerns. We (including you), can't see this clearly while staring at Bergs head.
I think that's exactly right.
As far as the Nick Berg article goes, I think the article is reasonable stable for now (though of course under heavy development). As of yesterday, the most Eloquent (;-)) proponent of showing most images inline agreed to have it behind a link, and even though the percentage has dropped since then, I think that decision is likely to hold for now.
So our discussion can and should continue, but in classic Wikipedia style, we need not rush to any final conclusions. We've knocked along reasonably well for a long time now, and probably can continue just fine. I don't think anyone's about to go on a rampage of inlining or image hiding, so we can mull this over and chat about it amicably for a while and then have some kind of vote later on.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
If someone says "Gee, I'd like to be able to read an article about the Nick Berg situation without having to look at the actual picture unless I choose to do so" then responding with: "Fine, you may turn off every single image in Wikipedia"
??? That's not the proposal. I think you misunderstood what has been discussed. See http://scireview.de/wikipedia/ihide/ (tested in Mozilla).
You would have a link to dynamically hide images *on that particular page*. To prevent people from viewing the image before they choose to hide it, the offensive image would be moved out of immediate view, perhaps to the bottom of the page. (It would be required by policy that adding such images is only allowed when the page is long enough to do that.)
There would be a user preference to hide images on such pages (those with a <warning> tag) by default to avoid all risk of stumbling across one by accident. That should not be the default, however, because then we would implicitly endorse the majority POV -- instead we endorse no POV, make only neutral statements about the offensiveness of images, and offer people the choice to tell the server "Please endorse my POV on this image", by clicking the hide link.
Last but not least, when there is clear consensus on the matter, images could still be moved to a separate page.
Regards,
Erik
On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 16:51 +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
You would have a link to dynamically hide images *on that particular page*. To prevent people from viewing the image before they choose to hide it, the offensive image would be moved out of immediate view, perhaps to the bottom of the page. (It would be required by policy that adding such images is only allowed when the page is long enough to do that.)
There would be a user preference to hide images on such pages (those with a <warning> tag) by default to avoid all risk of stumbling across one by accident. That should not be the default, however, because then we would implicitly endorse the majority POV -- instead we endorse no POV, make only neutral statements about the offensiveness of images, and offer people the choice to tell the server "Please endorse my POV on this image", by clicking the hide link.
We discussed something like this on irc yesterday, an idea is to use css classes to mark certain elements. A simple .violence { display: none } would be enough to hide violent things for example. Works already in 1.3 if you add that class to your user stylesheet. Could be used for things like 'spoiler', 'nudism' etc as well, multiple classes are possible like this: <div class="nudism spoiler">Some content</div>. A small javascript function could even offer to un-hide things with one click if desired.
I intend to move as many prefs as possible to generated css/js for 1.4 to improve performance, this is kind of a schoolbook example where this is particulary easy.
Gabriel Wicke
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
We discussed something like this on irc yesterday, an idea is to use css classes to mark certain elements. A simple .violence { display: none } would be enough to hide violent things for example. Works already in 1.3 if you add that class to your user stylesheet. Could be used for things like 'spoiler', 'nudism' etc as well, multiple classes are possible like this: <div class="nudism spoiler">Some content</div>. A small javascript function could even offer to un-hide things with one click if desired.
I intend to move as many prefs as possible to generated css/js for 1.4 to improve performance, this is kind of a schoolbook example where this is particulary easy.
Gabriel Wicke
If such spoiler or nudism is meant to be displayed inline within a paragraph, then the <div> tag will force it into a separate paragraph. Of course, if there were support for <span> tags, then we could use those...
- David