[Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters

[Nathan]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have to respectfully disagree with you on this point, Nathan. The blog
> post was about two basic issues:
>
> *How Wiki[mp]edians are interacting with each other , and
>
> *The role of editorial judgment in selecting which content is most
> educational, informative, appropriate and (in the case of images) aesthetic
> in the content that the various projects present to the world at large in
> our shared, collaborative quest to provide useful and educational
> information and media to the entire world.
>
> There has been a fair amount of nastiness aimed at specific individuals and
> belittling of the opinions of others throughout this discussion. Just as
> importantly, there has been a fair amount of unjustified categorization of,
> and assumptions about, people's opinions (both pro and con) on the issue of
> an image filter. We all are aware that this sort of behaviour detracts from
> effective resolution of disputes. Xenophobia, sexism, and elitism do not
> help us to meet our collective goals, nor does an insistence
> on the discussion encompassing only very narrow parameters.
>
> As to editorial judgment, we all know that just about every edit made to any
> of our projects requires some degree of judgment. Even editors who focus
> exclusively on vandal control have to exercise such judgment to ensure that
> they do not reinsert inappropriate information when reverting an apparent
> vandal. Projects have countless policies and guidelines that direct editors
> in their selection of material to be included, and under what circumstances.
> Article improvement processes on each Wikipedia are geared toward assisting
> editors to select the best and most subject-appropriate content, to present
> it in a well-written and visually attractive way, and to ensure that key
> information on the topic is included, while trivia is limited or
> eliminated.
>
> "Wikipedia is not censored" is not a reason to include or exclude
> information within a specific article: it is the philosophy that makes it
> clear that Wikipedia provides educational and informative articles on
> subjects whether or not that subject may be censored by external forces.
> That is why we have articles about the Tiananmen Square protests, and the
> Dalai Lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi and frottage and vulva and Mohammed.  Our
> job is to present the information, regardless of whether these articles
> could be censored somewhere in the world. How we present that information,
> however, is a matter of editorial judgment.
>
> Risker


We may be misunderstanding each other, because I don't disagree with
anything you've written. Where we might part ways is in classifying
certain things as, in this case, sexism; I don't believe Millosh was
being sexist at all. Understanding gender differences, and using data
(even basically anecdotal data, in this case) is not the same as being
sexist, and I think its likely that this is an example of "unjustified
categorization of, and assumptions about, people's opinions." We
should keep in mind that there are language and culture barriers even
on this list, and that these influence not just word choice and
grammar but also the context in which ideas are articulated and
understood.

Nathan