On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 10:59:56AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
I have to say, I find some of these objections a bit spurious.
Thanks for your response. I think some of my points may have not been as clear as I hoped, since some of your responses are responding to things I didn't actually say. Please allow me to clarify:
On 3/27/06, Karl A. Krueger kkrueger@whoi.edu wrote:
NPOV.1 -- Rating schemes are designed to reflect the opinions of those who object to sexual content (and a few other categories). They fail to represent the views of those who are tolerant of that content, but object to different content.
Well, no one's proposing censorship of religious views.
Right! That means your censorship proposal fails to represent the views of people who _do_ want religious censorship. That means it's non-neutral: it represents only one POV about what should be censored (the anti-sex view) and not another (the anti-blasphemy view).
NPOV.2 -- Grading any particular content on a rating scale is itself a matter of opinion. It involves making a judgment call on how "bad" or "explicit" an image or a paragraph is.
I think that's a problem that has been well and truly solved by many censorship bodies world wide. Whether nipples are exposed or not is not particular subjective.
Right! Each of those censorship bodies expresses particular views about what is "bad" or "explicit". Those groups are not bound by an NPOV policy; indeed, they are frequently commercial firms hired for the purpose of enforcing particular religious and moral points of view.
However, Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. It isn't up to us to say that nipples are "explicit" and elbows are not.
Second, they are in violation of our policy against self-censorship, and the underlying _reason_ we don't want self-censorship: it would produce a worse encyclopedia.
Our policy against self censorship is not a core policy. There's therefore no reason not to change it if we had the means.
Our policy against self-censorship is still a consensus policy, though. Censorship proposals (such as [[WP:TOBY]]) have been consistently and roundly rejected.
CENS.1 -- The only real proposed purpose of these rating systems is to enable censorship of Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia has a policy against self-censorship (see [[WP:NOT]]), adding material to Wikipedia articles for the purpose of getting those articles censored is against the rules.
You're saying that if we could rate articles to say they have certain offensive material, then people would deliberately add offensive material to more articles to avoid people seeing them? Assume good faith, n'est-ce pas?
(I wasn't sure if this point was too subtle. I guess it was.)
The "material" I was referring to was censorship tags. Adding those tags to Wikipedia articles, for the purpose of getting those articles censored, is against the policy that Wikipedia doesn't do censorship.
CENS.2 -- Writers want their work to be read. Any censorship system will tend to discourage people from writing on the censored topics. If sex is censored, our coverage on sexual topics will become relatively worse. (And I don't mean porn; I mean anatomy and sexual behavior.)
Writers will be discouraged from writing on topics which people don't want to read?
No. Writers will be discouraged from writing on topics which won't be seen because of censorship measures.
The coverage of [[pornography]] will be worse because now children won't be reading it? (or writing it???) I don't understand this argument.
No. The coverage of [[sex]] and [[breast cancer]] and [[testicle]] and [[abortion]] and [[mastectomy]] and [[Playboy magazine]] and [[nude]] will be worse because people will be less interested in writing if they think the audience is smaller.
Or, to pick another popular censorship topic -- violence -- the coverage of [[war]] and [[murder]] and [[AK-47]] and [[crushing by elephant]] and [[electrocution]] and [[Quake III Arena]] and [[terrorism]] will be worse, because people will be less interested in writing if they think the audience is smaller.
People write to be read. The effect of censorship measures is to reduce the size of the audience. (If a "censorship" measure does not prevent anyone from reading the "censored" material, then it is _ineffective_.) If the audience size is reduced, then the incentive to write is reduced.
People will also be less interested in writing if they are made to feel _unwelcome_ by measures that label their work as suitable for censoring. But that leads into the next objection ...
PERS.1 -- Giving something a high rating on a censorship system comes across as saying that it is unworthy (or less worthy) of being read. Usually, this means it is wicked or harmful or the like. Claims that a work should be censored are almost always linked to claims that the writer is immoral. If your work is smut, then you are a smutmonger; if your work is blasphemy, you are a blasphemer. These are personal attacks; we must not make them.
Ok, labelling [[penis]] "graphic images and description of sexual anatomy" amounts to a personal attack on the contributors of that article? You've totally lost me.
No. Labelling it as "unsuitable for reading" amounts to a personal attack on the contributors. Any time you enable censorship of particular material, you are making a claim that it is unfit to be read.
In order to be effective, a censorship measure must actually accomplish censorship -- that is, it must stop someone from reading the material censored.
If you were to label my work in such a way that enables censorship measures, then you would be making an implicit value judgment that my work _should_ be censored; that the world is better off if my work is censored than if it is not. You would be saying that people need to be protected from my work; that it will harm them or corrupt them; in effect, that I have done something dangerous (or at least negligent) by writing it in the first place ... or indeed, that I _am_ something dangerous for _wanting_ to write about it. These statements would be attacks upon my character, and as such in violation of [[WP:NPA]].
To put it another way: Why do we have a rule against personal attacks? Because personal attacks make people feel less welcome and less willing to collaborate. Calling someone's work smutty or harmful to minors will have that very same effect.
PERS.2 == "Marking my work for censorship is picking a fight."How bizzarre.
Not really. How would you like it if someone went around to _your_ contributions and marked them up in ways you found insulting and derogatory? That would be a bad thing, and nobody should do it. It would be disrespectful of you as a contributor, and it would also be a violation of Wikipedia policy.
On Mar 27, 2006, at 10:04 PM, Karl A. Krueger wrote:
PERS.2 == "Marking my work for censorship is picking afight."
How bizzarre.
Not really. How would you like it if someone went around to _your_ contributions and marked them up in ways you found insulting and derogatory? That would be a bad thing, and nobody should do it. It would be disrespectful of you as a contributor, and it would also be a violation of Wikipedia policy.
If I wrote an article that had bare breasts, I wouldn't be in the least offended if someone tagged it as "has bare breasts".
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Philip Welch stated for the record:
If I wrote an article that had bare breasts, I wouldn't be in the least offended if someone tagged it as "has bare breasts".
And if you wrote an article about dinosaurs, or one about a homosexual that conformed to NPOV regarding the subject's sex life, would you be offended if someone tagged either as "promotes heresy"?
- -- Sean Barrett | Time is nature's way of keeping sean@epoptic.org | everything from happening all at once.
On Apr 2, 2006, at 7:58 PM, Sean Barrett wrote:
If I wrote an article that had bare breasts, I wouldn't be in the least offended if someone tagged it as "has bare breasts".
And if you wrote an article about dinosaurs, or one about a homosexual that conformed to NPOV regarding the subject's sex life, would you be offended if someone tagged either as "promotes heresy"?
That's a straw man and I won't dignify it with a response.
Philip Welch wrote:
On Mar 27, 2006, at 10:04 PM, Karl A. Krueger wrote:
PERS.2 == "Marking my work for censorship is picking afight."
How bizzarre.
Not really. How would you like it if someone went around to _your_ contributions and marked them up in ways you found insulting and derogatory? That would be a bad thing, and nobody should do it. It would be disrespectful of you as a contributor, and it would also be a violation of Wikipedia policy.
If I wrote an article that had bare breasts, I wouldn't be in the least offended if someone tagged it as "has bare breasts".
We need to keep [[Britannia]] in mind where it says, "Early portraits of the goddess depict Britannia as a beautiful young woman, wearing the helmet of a Centurion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion, and wrapped in a white toga with her right breast exposed."
IIRC Britannica had an arrangement of the trident and shield in its logos before it adopted a thistle with which to nourish goats.
Who could complain about a goddess with her bare Britannicas ready to nourish a nation?
Ec
On 4/3/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
We need to keep [[Britannia]] in mind where it says, "Early portraits of the goddess depict Britannia as a beautiful young woman, wearing the helmet of a Centurion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion, and wrapped in a white toga with her right breast exposed."
IIRC Britannica had an arrangement of the trident and shield in its logos before it adopted a thistle with which to nourish goats.
I wonder if the next edition of Britannica will have: "Early logos for Wikipedia depicted a young girl, of approximately seven years of age, buttocks exposed and seemingly yearning for the erect penis about to penetrate her".
</bad taste>
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 4/3/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
We need to keep [[Britannia]] in mind where it says, "Early portraits of the goddess depict Britannia as a beautiful young woman, wearing the helmet of a Centurion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion, and wrapped in a white toga with her right breast exposed."
IIRC Britannica had an arrangement of the trident and shield in its logos before it adopted a thistle with which to nourish goats.
I wonder if the next edition of Britannica will have: "Early logos for Wikipedia depicted a young girl, of approximately seven years of age, buttocks exposed and seemingly yearning for the erect penis about to penetrate her".
That seems well within the tradition of a stiff upper labium. ;-)
Ec
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 4/3/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
We need to keep [[Britannia]] in mind where it says, "Early portraits of the goddess depict Britannia as a beautiful young woman, wearing the helmet of a Centurion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion, and wrapped in a white toga with her right breast exposed."
IIRC Britannica had an arrangement of the trident and shield in its logos before it adopted a thistle with which to nourish goats.
I wonder if the next edition of Britannica will have: "Early logos for Wikipedia depicted a young girl, of approximately seven years of age, buttocks exposed and seemingly yearning for the erect penis about to penetrate her".
</bad taste>
Don't forget that there were stuffed animals involved...
On 3/28/06, Karl A. Krueger karl@simons-rock.edu wrote:
Right! That means your censorship proposal fails to represent the views of people who _do_ want religious censorship. That means it's non-neutral: it represents only one POV about what should be censored (the anti-sex view) and not another (the anti-blasphemy view).
I'm not sure I understand or agree with this viewpoint. Banning guns but not prostitution is not somehow an endorsement of prostitution. And I haven't actually hard of "anti-blasphemy" content filtering. My proposal was made in the context of teachers refusing to let kids use Wikipedia because of sexual photos or material being too easily accessible.
Right! Each of those censorship bodies expresses particular views about what is "bad" or "explicit". Those groups are not bound by an NPOV policy; indeed, they are frequently commercial firms hired for the purpose of enforcing particular religious and moral points of view.
However, Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. It isn't up to us to say that nipples are "explicit" and elbows are not.
I don't think "Wikipedia" is supposed to be neutral. *Content* in Wikipedia is supposed to be balanced. So I don't really see that as an argument for anything.
But anyway, as for nipples...*everyone* (and in almost every culture) recognises them as controversial. And there are people not using Wikipedia because of the risk of encountering them. If and when elbows become a problem, we could cross that bridge too.
Our policy against self-censorship is still a consensus policy, though. Censorship proposals (such as [[WP:TOBY]]) have been consistently and roundly rejected.
I don't think Toby was the be-all and end-all of all possible content filtering policies. And you're calling it "self-censorship", which I think refers to excluding material from Wikipedia, so that *no one* could see it. I'm only proposing preventing people already using content filtering software from seeing it.
I'm really puzzled that my suggestion could be so controversial, but there you go.
The "material" I was referring to was censorship tags. Adding those tags to Wikipedia articles, for the purpose of getting those articles censored, is against the policy that Wikipedia doesn't do censorship.
I'm proposing changing that policy.
No. Writers will be discouraged from writing on topics which won't be seen because of censorship measures.
"Won't be seen" - I suspect that readership of any given page would diminish by less than 5% even with content filtering tags. Perhaps much less than that.
No. The coverage of [[sex]] and [[breast cancer]] and [[testicle]] and [[abortion]] and [[mastectomy]] and [[Playboy magazine]] and [[nude]] will be worse because people will be less interested in writing if they think the audience is smaller.
Those people should ask themselves which audience members they are losing. Who would find themselves blocked from such a page? Think about it.
Or, to pick another popular censorship topic -- violence -- the coverage of [[war]] and [[murder]] and [[AK-47]] and [[crushing by elephant]] and [[electrocution]] and [[Quake III Arena]] and [[terrorism]] will be worse, because people will be less interested in writing if they think the audience is smaller.
Same argument. Why write for people whose parents/teachers don't want them to see this material?
People write to be read. The effect of censorship measures is to reduce the size of the audience. (If a "censorship" measure does not prevent anyone from reading the "censored" material, then it is _ineffective_.) If the audience size is reduced, then the incentive to write is reduced.
I honestly feel this is a pretty weak argument. You're bringing economics into it, but aren't considering things like whether the given user wouldn't go and read another page instead, for example.
No. Labelling it as "unsuitable for reading" amounts to a personal attack on the contributors. Any time you enable censorship of particular material, you are making a claim that it is unfit to be read.
Well, again, you're not really attacking my proposal, which is to allow end users to filter content themselves, based on tags we supply. It's up to the end user (or their supervisor) to determine what is "unfit" to read.
To put it another way: Why do we have a rule against personal attacks? Because personal attacks make people feel less welcome and less willing to collaborate. Calling someone's work smutty or harmful to minors will have that very same effect.
I don't think anyone working on [[autofellatio]] will be terribly offended by it being called "smutty", to be perfectly frank. But see my previous remark.
Not really. How would you like it if someone went around to _your_ contributions and marked them up in ways you found insulting and derogatory? That would be a bad thing, and nobody should do it. It
Sure. But that's not what I was proposing. If I was working on a porn article, and someone labelled it "porn", I'd be hard pressed to argue.
Steve
On 3 Apr 2006, at 10:00, Steve Bennett wrote:
To put it another way: Why do we have a rule against personal attacks? Because personal attacks make people feel less welcome and less willing to collaborate. Calling someone's work smutty or harmful to minors will have that very same effect.
I don't think anyone working on [[autofellatio]] will be terribly offended by it being called "smutty", to be perfectly frank. But see my previous remark.
Not really. How would you like it if someone went around to _your_ contributions and marked them up in ways you found insulting and derogatory? That would be a bad thing, and nobody should do it. It
Sure. But that's not what I was proposing. If I was working on a porn article, and someone labelled it "porn", I'd be hard pressed to argue.
Yes, but [[Breastfeeding]] (a featured article) is going to be tagged as unsuitable, isnt it. This is not acceptable.
And "smutty" is a rather loaded term. I dont think [[No-pan kissa]] is smutty for example, and have tried to make it an informative article with references. I cant see anything in it that children should not see, but I imagine it would be tagged too.
Justinc
On 4/3/06, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
Yes, but [[Breastfeeding]] (a featured article) is going to be tagged as unsuitable, isnt it. This is not acceptable.
I'm kind of sick of people arguing against subjective tags like "unsuitable" or "smutty". We're all in agreement there. No offence, but there must have been close to 10 posts arguing against precisely that.
And "smutty" is a rather loaded term. I dont think [[No-pan kissa]] is smutty for example, and have tried to make it an informative article with references. I cant see anything in it that children should not see, but I imagine it would be tagged too.
Well, I won't look at that here, but it would, under what I was suggesting, be tagged on an objective basis.
Steve