[Foundation-l] Boycott in ace at wiki

[wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk]

Excirial wrote:
> *There is no general Christian prohibition on depicting Christ. In fact it
> is a generally accepted practice. Generally Muslims don't, and consider it a
> mark of disrespect to do so. Why offend?*
> 
> 1) It is a historically important subject which should be covered in an
> encyclopedia.


By all means do so. But there is no reason to include the image. Others
managed to convey the controversy without doing so. In addition being a
web page you have the option to provide a link to the image rather than
embedding it. Its not as if the wikipage actually needs the image at all.


> 2) We do not cater to the wishes and desires of any group, no exception. If
> we cater one, we have to cater a second, then a third and so on and on.
> 3) Anyone who does not wish to see the images can block them - its a
> personal choice on whether you do or don't want to see. If there is a
> problem with their mere existence there is nothing we can do - we can't
> erase them from history.


Do you have some special browser button that enables blocking of
selected images before visiting a page? Or are you advocating the global
blocking of all images?


> 4) The images may offend millions, but that still leaves billions who aren't
> offended by them. I would argue that the knowledge needs of the larger group
> outweigh the issues of the smaller group - especially since we are not
> forcing anything on the small group. As said in point 3: Images are on
> specific pages, and even those are accessible since images can be blocked.


So why isn't goatse.cx embedded on the shock site page. Gerrard says
that its because there might be copyright issues but that hasn't been a
problem in cases of the Mohammed images that the ace group are
complaining about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jyllands-Posten-pg3-article-in-Sept-30-2005-edition-of-KulturWeekend-entitled-Muhammeds-ansigt.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Everybody_Draw_Mohammed_Day.jpg

using those images has been declared fair-use. Even The Piss Christ 
images is similarly 'fair-used'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piss_Christ_by_Serrano_Andres_%281987%29.jpg

So I think I'm going to call you on being totally hypocritical on the 
issue of "the knowledge needs of the larger group outweigh the issues of 
the smaller group", because it is quite simply untrue.