[Foundation-l] Board resolutions on controversial content and images of identifiable people

[Kim Bruning]

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 10:19:45PM +0100, Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 26 August 2011 02:15, David Goodman <dggenwp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > make it plainer, that people who find ? Wikipedia articles appropriate
> > for advocating their religious beliefs may use the content for that
> > purpose, to that the WMF should find some universally acceptable sets
> > of spiritual beliefs, and use its content to advocate them. Taking one
> > of the proposed possibilities (probably the one that instigated this),
> > providing for censoring images on the grounds of sexual content is
> > doing exactly that for views on ?sexual behavior. We're officially
> > saying that X is content you may find objectionable, but Y isn't.
> > That's making an editorial statement about what is shown on X and Y.
> 
> I've finally twigged what's worrying me about this discussion.
> 
> We're *already* making these editorial statements, deciding what is
> and isn't appropriate or offensive for the readers on their behalf,
> and doing it within articles on a daily basis.

What's worrying me about your discussion is that you're differentiating
between users who are readers and users who are editors. You've given up
on wikipedia being a wiki?  ;-)

> As such, I don't think considering this as the first step towards
> censorship, or as a departure from initial neutrality, is very
> meaningful; it's presuming that the alternative is reverting to a
> neutral and balanced status quo, but that never really existed.

I'm not saying there are no (minor) issues with neutrality as it stands.
We work hard on that every day. I don't believe that just because we're
not 100% perfect means that we can just give up and throw out NPOV
entirely!

>  The status quo is that every reader, in every context, gets given the
>  one particular image selection that a group of Wikipedians have
>  decided is appropriate for them to have, on a take-it-or-leave-it
>  basis...

The status quo is that anyone can edit an article or enter a discussion
about the article. I don't understand why you would say it is
take-it-or-leave-it. I can still, today, as an anon, remove or add
images as I see fit. This is permitted and even encouraged, provided
that what I am doing is sane (And thus most likely meets consensus).

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning