--- BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
It is a very natural thing to assume that ones own values are omnipresent. We like to be around people who are similar to ourselves and therefore we by default assume that those that have different points of view are wrong. But it doesn't work on an international project like Wikipedia. I.e what you think is "potentially offensive" may be totally non-offensive to someone else. And what someone else think is "potentially offensive" may be totally non-offensive to you.
If I'd simply used the word "offensive", you might have a point, but I deliberately qualified it by saying "potentially-offensive" for exactly the reason you point out. I grew up outside of Europe, and I am quite aware that there are many different cultures and values that are involved in a project like Wikipedia. However, it is indisputable that nudity is a touchy issue for lots of cultures, and even more so in deliberately erotic images.
I'm not sure you understand where I'm coming from, here. I am arguing that when A) an image is used which likely to be offensive to very many readers, across many cultures and countries; and B) an alternative can be produced which is of equal illustrative value, but which mitigates the offensiveness to some degree, then we should go for the alternative. It's a clear win for the project.
As a case study, consier the following two images which could be used to illustrate the "Hogtie bondage" article (likely not work/public safe!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Model_in_classic_Hogtie.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Model_in_stringent_hogtie.jpg
The images seem virtually identical to me in terms of what they illustrate regarding the topic. However, for some reason, people have been insisting on using the unclothed version in preference to the clothed version. I would argue that that's a clear loss for the project.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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