First, let me apologise for the out of order reply... Gmail's threading system is terrible to say the least, and I've missed part of this discussion.
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:46:52 +0200, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I think you are confusing censorship and neutrality
I don't think I am...
Well, we might agree to disagree then :-)
Quite possibly, but I'd like to be sure that we actually disagree.. So here is what I think...
1. For the purpose of neutrality, images and text are not greatly different. If we shun text because we think it expresses a bad idea, then we are not being neutral. If we shun an image because it expresses a bad idea it is effectively the same. If we argue that we are not banning the topic but banning images of the topic, we have just changed ourself from making value judgments on the topic to judgments on "images of the topic", again, we are not neutral if we decide that "images of the topic" are bad. (because you could write an article about images of that topic and then the image becomes a direct matter)
2. Some people (at a minimum including the people whos concerns you are bringing up now, and possibly you) think that is would be good to have differing 'standards' for the acceptability of content in differing language wikis.
3. In order to be neutral, the primary standards we use to decide if content should be banned are: Encyclopedic (i.e. it's ability to inform and educate) and legal (do we have a right to distribute the content).
4. If we ban material because we think that it is bad, or represents evil, then we have imposed our values on the material and are thusly not talking a neutral position.
5. The concepts of encyclopedicness are generally universal: Material which informs, educates, and increases knowledge, will continue to do for speakers of other languages. (If translated as needed).
6. If we combine point (5) with point (2) we find that the reason for differing standards for other languages must necessarily be of a nature not related to encyclopedic value. This is undesirable due to point (3). I do not think that it is a leap to state that if we are not banning material because it does not convey knowledge, then we are very likely banning it because we believe that it is bad or evil. Have I made a mistake? If not, we run into (4).. We should not ban things because some people decide that they are evil.
Right, which is a reason why the image is useful.... It says that it is possible in a manner which is difficult for text or drawings to do alone.
You have a point here.
It's not my goal to argue for the picture, but yes.. I think I do have a point. But this point doesn't mean the image couldn't be improved or replaced with a better one...
There are many ways we can address the issue, but removing things we dislike because we dislike them without primarily considering their potential value is a huge risk that I'd like for us to avoid.
Na, you did not understand mine. I do not support its deletion due to the act being bad, nor to nudity being bad. I think that it is a delicate topic and we should be careful to limit rejection from readers.
This is indeed a very complex topic. As it stand now, the english wikipedia in it's complete (and unvandalized) form would not be legally usable inside public primary schools in most of the United States. This is a huge potential audience for an encyclopedia (but perhaps not the most *important* audience for us, because it's likely that a proportionately smaller number of good editors will come from that audience).
Once you factor in vandalism, there really is no way to use wikipedia (or most of the internet, for that matter) in that enviroment as things stand today.
The problem is, of course, for any sufficiently interesting subject there will be people that any rational policy will drive away. This is largely because humans are generally not entire rational about at least a few subjects.
We may only achieve the attention of some of that audience by reducing our level of rationality... which will ultimately cost us another audience.
If our goal is to have the widest audience *today* then we are taking the wrong approach. I like to think that we are trying to maximize the value of the resource over the longterm...
It is very easy for those that care to create censored subsets of the wikipedia. It is not easy to find censored wikipedia articles that don't exist.
The very vivid colors of the picture, the sweat, the bestial look, the angle of pictures... all suggest porn. The picture is NOT pretty. I think sensible topics could be much less problematic is treated in a sensible manner.
I never studied the image so closely. :)
But you make a point, ... It would not be censorship to replace the image with one that conveyed the same information but better met some aesthetic goals.
Here is what I would suggest. If you are still young enough and have a partner able to do decent pictures, please propose your own picture. Select soft colors, a pleasant angle of view, a neutral or just gently expecting look on your own face, and let's talk about it again ? Okay ?
(I am serious).
I wouldn't be qualified to produce that particular demonstration myself without risking a back injury. ;)
I suppose could probably find someone who could, however..
It would be best if we could maximize the clinical appearance of such an image. I would not be the best person to make such suggestions, because I'm not bothered by it at all.... your suggestion of 'soft colors' would not be my first guess on how to achieve this goal.
Both neutrality and censorship are "strong guidelines".
[snip guidelines examples]
This is very unfortunate you chose not to comment on the examples. I think this is very relevant to the contrary. Most of you hardest core supporters of non-censorship, an opinion I respect, do not comment on where you would draw the hardline. I am sure you have a hardline just as anybody else, but you just put it further than we do. It might be informative to know where you put it. Classification of system to filter content do not do any different. They try to define level of "violence or sex" to define the different levels of filtering. If we admit that we have a sort of line, we might just as well try to define where it is.
I didn't reply to the examples because I thought all of them were unreasonable. ... I really do believe that setting such a line should be avoided, and I am really arguing that doing so would be a serious mistake.
Here is where we really would probably end up agreeing to disagree. I would be surprised if I were every offended by a chunk of factual information, I might object to what it represents as I object to the Holocaust but I would not find images of the mutilation of humans that happened during the holocaust objectionable. I would not find images of child rape offensive, although I really doubt they would be useful in an article on the subject, and.. Of course, I would never allow such an act to actually be committed if I had the power to stop it.
I might find information in the form of a call to action (for example, hate speech) objectionable, because it forms instructions (directly or indirectly) to be carried out, rather than just conveying facts. Because of the principal of neutrality and the nature of editing on wikipedia, I think that it's highly unlikely that I would encounter such content.... and if I did, I would be uniquely empowered to address the problem. :)
The difference is that true factual information is what it is... If we erase the evidence of it, we do not make it nonexistent. I don't believe that information of that type can be bad. Information that attempts to sway people to commit a bad action is the only type of information that I think can be 'bad' (because it isn't inert), and even in that case, outright censorship is often not the best means to prevent harm.
Since I don't find the information we're discussing to be bad (because it's just inert information), I do not believe that it would be rational to exclude it on the basis of being offensive. (excluding it because we can find better material to use on the same topic is another matter entirely).
I am unsure how many people share my position. I live with someone (who is actually a pretty active contributing editor, unlike me.. I've only edited a few things) who mostly shares my position on the matter of information being 'bad', but I don't have any reason to believe that she is any more normal than I am.
Even if my position isn't common, I think it is a useful position to study the subject from... if not the only potentially valid position.
Unfortunately, we can not easily modify a picture. This is a black and white option.
If we decide that the image isn't the best image to convey the subject and it should probably be replaced with a similar image, then the intuitive course of action is to mark it as such, and leave it there. ... If we've agreed that something is informative (and encyclopedic) but needs improvement our practice has been to not delete it... The bad version serves as an incentive for people to replace it with a good version, and as an example of what we are trying to improve.
...Though some attempts have been made on the clitoris picture. The best solution is probably to provide a picture which might be more acceptable by a larger set of body.
Right, thats acceptable... If we keep the same educational value, it isn't at all censorship to find content that matches other more complex values... For example, it would be probably reasonable to replace a picture of a "mustang" car on the article about that with another equally good picture of a mustang that has a body color that better matches the color scheme of wikipedia.... :)
I think accepting that cultures have different taboos is right.
Calling other communities rules and opinions, when differing from
yours, "non-neutral" is wrong. This is what you are doing. The decision of the english wikipedia is fine, but the rules applied on the english wikipedia, belongs to the english wikipedia. They should not impair the right of other communities to set their own rules, without those being called censorship.
I'm not sure if this is the case or not.. I think if you go over my points at the top we will improve our mutual understanding on this matter.
cognitive dissonance
Sorry, I do not understand that sentence.
[[Cognitive dissonance]] Explains the concept better than I can. ... I am basically saying that you are giving me too ideas which I would like to believe but I find them to be conflicting.
When
we attempt to modify the article to fit our views and exclude others, this is non-neutral and this is censorship.
Well, I tried to exclude an image. You tried to exclude people.
.. I'm not sure if you are talking about excluding the people who will not use the wikipedia because they are offended by some of it's content... or my suggestion that we exclude people who want to operate under differing rules. Both are possible, so I will answer both.
I don't think it's our goal to include all possible readers, because all possible readers are not rational and "you can not please all of the people all of the time". I can't be faulted for excluding all these people because we exclude many people just because we refuse to include "France is a bunch of cowards". ;)
In case of excluding editors... It is normal to ask people who do not wish to follow the rules of the game to go start their own game elsewhere.
These are different approaches. Telling people to fork is also a bit censorship, don't you think ?
Forks are not usually good, but they can be liberating. I'd welcome anyones contributions, but if people insist on removing the valuable contributions of others, I don't think it is censorship to ask them to go remove things elsewhere.
I do not hope to start a fight in saying this, but just to mention that it is very easy to talk about censorship, but it has several faces.
That is very true. I think we are all guilty of making things more simple than they strictly are, but I don't know that communication is possible without simplification.
Well, anyway, thanks for the more moderated tone, I appreciated. Hope I do not offend you in this mail. Do not wish to.
You have not offended me in the least, and I'm glad we've come to a greater understanding. Equally, I do not wish to offend you.