On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:16:10 -0600, Richard Holton
I don't think the issue is really about
"right" or "wrong". I think
that most people in most cultures would agree that "murder" is wrong
(though they may define murder in differing ways). However, it would
take a _very_ extreme position to suggest that we not have an article
about murder in Wikipedia. Its wrongness does not at all suggest that
is should not be covered.
I think of it as more of a meta issue. By deleting such images based
on that type of right or wrong you are stating that pornography
(nudity, sex, .. whichever applies) is right or wrong, that is, we
delete it because it's wrong.
Can we write a neutral article on pornography when we make the claim
that images showing nudity are wrong (by having a policy which
excludes such images)?
I don't think that we can rationally. It would be a very hippo
critical position which would be difficult to support with an
internally consistent policy. If we can't write an internally
consistent policy on the matter, we invite everyone with a possible
objection to remove whatever content they dislike.
However, I suspect you'd find much less agreement
about including in
that article a photo or a movie showing an actual murder. Again, this
is not about right or wrong. It's about appropriateness. In this case,
you might find substantial cultural variation, as well as differences
of opinion within some cultures.
Well the matter is a little more complex, in that I don't think there
would be all that much objection to a murder clip cut down to the bare
minimum required to be informative beyond the lack of a murder clip.
... Also, I can't even think of a situation where a murder clip would
even be as informative as the autofelletiao image.
Making a decision to include or exclude such an
image/movie from an
article is not a question of censorship. It's a question of what is
appropriate, which is subjective and will vary between cultures.
I don't agree, You can just as easily make the same claim about text
"making the decision to include or exclude such text from an article
is not a question of censorship. It's a question of what is
appropriate". Images are not all that different from text.
To, for example, insist that an article on murder
_must_ include an
image/movie showing murder if a free, informational one is available,
is to become enslaved to the concept of censorship as much as
insisting that the article must not have such an image/movie. Either
way, we are sacrificing our ability to apply editorial judgment.
This is a silly argument because it's addressing a point I have never
made and will never make. I've never argued that an article must
contain anything, what it contains is a matter of concern for it's
editors. My complaint is that we are talking about what articles may
not contain.