From: "Karl A. Krueger" kkrueger@whoi.edu For what it's worth, I don't think this fuss is really about autofellatio, any more than it was about clitorises (clitorides?) when the fuss was over the article [[Clitoris]]. ...
Rather, the issue here seems to me to be whether Wikipedia needs some kind of rules under which people's work will be deleted or hidden away on the grounds of being "offensive". I hold that it does not; indeed, that such rules would harm the project. Existing ad-hoc practices work just fine for selecting the work that should be included, on the basis of accuracy, style, neutrality, copyright, and other such rules.
I agree - however, the argument here is being made that linking to a image that is beyond the bounds is NPOV despite the voting and actions by Jimbo.
- Students *should* have access to educational articles of this type.
I have a distinct memory of looking up "fellatio" in a dictionary at my school library. I had no stomach for asking my mom or dad what the word meant - and I didn't trust my fellow students enough to take them at their word. I didn't need a picture to understand (though I may have wanted one).
In holding that students should have access (presumably via Wikipedia) to definitions and descriptions of fellatio, you've already placed this ideal of Wikipedia where it would be blocked by censorware and other processes that seek to "protect" children from "indecency".
I think if we are reasonable in the inclusion of images such that they meet an stardard of providing educational or instructional information - over time, such objectsions would be overcome, and wikipedia would become an exception to such blocks - just as full volumes of encylopedias are available at every school library even though they contain articles on things labeled "indecent" and responsible parents, like me (I have 4 children) would fight for the right of wikipedia to be included in schools against those would ban it based on a few articles (its value outweighing the risk). However, by including images like those discussed here, I can't even make that argument to myself.
The presence or absence of images would not, then, control whether Wikipedia were accessible to those students.
I think it could - especially as censorware controls become more finely tunable (if that is such a word).
Offense is not a good criterion on which to judge whether material should be presented in an encyclopedia. If it were, we would be unable to cover adequately any number of subjects which offend people.
But offense to a great number of people is good critera for deciding whether something could be included as a link or inline.
Images are much more powerful communicators than text. To include graphic images that provide no educational or encyclopedic content and would offend most people in the article without a link or warning would be IMHO foolish. And to provide it through the link should satisfy (but for some reason doesn't) those that want to claim censorship and NPOV.
Jim
On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 01:17:34PM -0500, Jim Trodel wrote:
"Karl A. Krueger" kkrueger@whoi.edu wrote:
Rather, the issue here seems to me to be whether Wikipedia needs some kind of rules under which people's work will be deleted or hidden away on the grounds of being "offensive". I hold that it does not; indeed, that such rules would harm the project. Existing ad-hoc practices work just fine for selecting the work that should be included, on the basis of accuracy, style, neutrality, copyright, and other such rules.
I agree - however, the argument here is being made that linking to a image that is beyond the bounds is NPOV despite the voting and actions by Jimbo.
Setting up "bounds" on the basis solely of offense is not NPOV and is not legitimate for Wikipedia. There are, however, perfectly good legitimate criteria which exclude some of the same images which also offend people.
Note, for instance, that Jimbo did not defend his unlinking of the image on the basis of its offending people, and specifically disclaimed that motive: see [[Talk:Autofellatio#Raul's convo]].
Here's another approach:
The class of images I suspect more people are concerned about is not the class "offensive images", but rather the class "gratuitously offensive images". Most everyone recognizes that there is also a class of "informative images which also offend some people" -- for instance, internal organs, caterpillars, swastikas, hammer-and-sickles, Abu Ghraib, Jesus fish, etc., and that we must use these images in articles where they are relevant.
For an image to be gratuitously offensive, it has to be gratuitous; that is, not appreciably informative. But ... if an image is not appreciably informative, then it has no business being in an encyclopedia article in the first place. (The same standard applies to external links: we remove useless ones, not because they are offensive but because they are useless clutter.)
The "offensiveness" criterion cancels out, since we have no use for uninformative images, be they offensive or no.
So the argument basically comes down to a case-by-case decision by editors of whether each individual image is informative -- or, better, which of a number of image options is the most informative. This is what happens already.
The presence or absence of images would not, then, control whether Wikipedia were accessible to those students.
I think it could - especially as censorware controls become more finely tunable (if that is such a word).
(It is. "Your eyes are lode-stars, and your tongue sweet air / More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear" -- Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream".)
Unfortunately, the state of the world today is that "offensive" text is much easier for automated systems such as censorware to recognize than "offensive" images. It is easier for a program to pattern-match the word "fellatio" than a picture of same.
Offense is not a good criterion on which to judge whether material should be presented in an encyclopedia. If it were, we would be unable to cover adequately any number of subjects which offend people.
But offense to a great number of people is good critera for deciding whether something could be included as a link or inline.
I'm not so sure. If the image is informative, then hiding it behind a link relegates it to a second-class status. It has, to me, connotations of sneakiness or dirtiness: "Heh-heh, do you *really* want to see?"
I believe this matter was extensively hashed out in the matter of the [[Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse]] article, where presentation of a "censored" or "images suppressed" version of an article was rejected. The talk-page and VfD discussions surrounding that article cluster are informative.
Images are much more powerful communicators than text. To include graphic images that provide no educational or encyclopedic content and would offend most people in the article without a link or warning would be IMHO foolish. And to provide it through the link should satisfy (but for some reason doesn't) those that want to claim censorship and NPOV.
If an image has no educational or encyclopedic content, then it doesn't belong on Wikipedia at all, regardless of whether it offends people.
--- "Karl A. Krueger" kkrueger@whoi.edu wrote:
... If an image has no educational or encyclopedic content, then it doesn't belong on Wikipedia at all, regardless of whether it offends people.
Agreed.
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--- geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed.
Which is why it is od that no one has anaged to give a direct answer to my question about what information the picture adds to the article.
Someone did. The photo shows that it is actually possible to perform this act. A line-dawing would not.
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geni said:
Agreed.
Which is why it is od that no one has anaged to give a direct answer to my question about what information the picture adds to the article. --
I believe you got an answer from me. And David Gerard's was I think very direct: it demonstrates that it's possible. But illustrations aren't required to be absolutely necessary to appear in an article. I have blind friends who seem to manage very well without sight, so I'm confident that I don't need to use my eyes. But I'm glad I've got them and one of the reasons is that I can look at pictures.
geni (geniice@gmail.com) [050217 06:35]:
Agreed.
Which is why it is od that no one has anaged to give a direct answer to my question about what information the picture adds to the article.
I did precisely that:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019703.html
"That it's actually possible. A line drawing really is not a substitute."
- d.
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019703.html"That it's actually possible. A line drawing really is not a substitute."
But failed to say why a line drawing is not a subsitute (argument by assertion logical fallacy in other words).
geni (geniice@gmail.com) [050217 09:27]:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019703.html
"That it's actually possible. A line drawing really is not a substitute."
But failed to say why a line drawing is not a subsitute (argument by assertion logical fallacy in other words).
Because I assumed it obvious that a photo was a photo and a line drawing was an artist's creation.
- d.
geni said:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019703.html"That it's actually possible. A line drawing really is not a substitute."
But failed to say why a line drawing is not a subsitute (argument by assertion logical fallacy in other words).
A line drawing cannot show that it's possible. It shouldn't be necessary to spell this out.
Karl A. Krueger said:
Note, for instance, that Jimbo did not defend his unlinking of the image on the basis of its offending people, and specifically disclaimed that motive: see [[Talk:Autofellatio#Raul's convo]].
I seem to recall that he cited esthetic reasons.