[WikiEN-l] Britannica quote of the day

[Karl A. Krueger]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 10:59:56AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
>   I have to say, I find some of these objections a bit spurious.

Thanks for your response.  I think some of my points may have not been
as clear as I hoped, since some of your responses are responding to
things I didn't actually say.  Please allow me to clarify:


> On 3/27/06, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> > NPOV.1 -- Rating schemes are designed to reflect the opinions of those
> >           who object to sexual content (and a few other categories).
> >           They fail to represent the views of those who are tolerant of
> >           that content, but object to different content.
> 
> Well, no one's proposing censorship of religious views.

Right!  That means your censorship proposal fails to represent the
views of people who _do_ want religious censorship.  That means it's
non-neutral:  it represents only one POV about what should be censored
(the anti-sex view) and not another (the anti-blasphemy view).


> > NPOV.2 -- Grading any particular content on a rating scale is itself a
> >           matter of opinion.  It involves making a judgment call on how
> >           "bad" or "explicit" an image or a paragraph is.
> 
> I think that's a problem that has been well and truly solved by many
> censorship bodies world wide. Whether nipples are exposed or not is
> not particular subjective.

Right!  Each of those censorship bodies expresses particular views
about what is "bad" or "explicit".  Those groups are not bound by an
NPOV policy; indeed, they are frequently commercial firms hired for the
purpose of enforcing particular religious and moral points of view.

However, Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral.  It isn't up to us to say
that nipples are "explicit" and elbows are not.


> > Second, they are in violation of our policy against self-censorship, and
> > the underlying _reason_ we don't want self-censorship:  it would produce
> > a worse encyclopedia.
> 
> Our policy against self censorship is not a core policy. There's
> therefore no reason not to change it if we had the means.

Our policy against self-censorship is still a consensus policy, though.
Censorship proposals (such as [[WP:TOBY]]) have been consistently and
roundly rejected.


> > CENS.1 -- The only real proposed purpose of these rating systems is to
> >           enable censorship of Wikipedia.  Since Wikipedia has a policy
> >           against self-censorship (see [[WP:NOT]]), adding material to
> >           Wikipedia articles for the purpose of getting those articles
> >           censored is against the rules.
> 
> You're saying that if we could rate articles to say they have certain
> offensive material, then people would deliberately add offensive
> material to more articles to avoid people seeing them? Assume good
> faith, n'est-ce pas?

(I wasn't sure if this point was too subtle.  I guess it was.)

The "material" I was referring to was censorship tags.  Adding those
tags to Wikipedia articles, for the purpose of getting those articles
censored, is against the policy that Wikipedia doesn't do censorship.


> > CENS.2 -- Writers want their work to be read.  Any censorship system
> >           will tend to discourage people from writing on the censored
> >           topics.  If sex is censored, our coverage on sexual topics
> >           will become relatively worse.  (And I don't mean porn; I mean
> >           anatomy and sexual behavior.)
> 
> Writers will be discouraged from writing on topics which people don't
> want to read?

No.  Writers will be discouraged from writing on topics which won't be
seen because of censorship measures.


> The coverage of [[pornography]] will be worse because now children
> won't be reading it? (or writing it???) I don't understand this
> argument.

No.  The coverage of [[sex]] and [[breast cancer]] and [[testicle]] and
[[abortion]] and [[mastectomy]] and [[Playboy magazine]] and [[nude]]
will be worse because people will be less interested in writing if they
think the audience is smaller.

Or, to pick another popular censorship topic -- violence -- the coverage
of [[war]] and [[murder]] and [[AK-47]] and [[crushing by elephant]] and
[[electrocution]] and [[Quake III Arena]] and [[terrorism]] will be
worse, because people will be less interested in writing if they think
the audience is smaller.

People write to be read.  The effect of censorship measures is to reduce
the size of the audience.  (If a "censorship" measure does not prevent
anyone from reading the "censored" material, then it is _ineffective_.)
If the audience size is reduced, then the incentive to write is reduced.

People will also be less interested in writing if they are made to feel
_unwelcome_ by measures that label their work as suitable for censoring.
But that leads into the next objection ...


> > PERS.1 -- Giving something a high rating on a censorship system comes
> >           across as saying that it is unworthy (or less worthy) of being
> >           read.  Usually, this means it is wicked or harmful or the
> >           like.  Claims that a work should be censored are almost always
> >           linked to claims that the writer is immoral.  If your work is
> >           smut, then you are a smutmonger; if your work is blasphemy,
> >           you are a blasphemer.  These are personal attacks; we must not
> >           make them.
> 
> Ok, labelling [[penis]] "graphic images and description of sexual
> anatomy" amounts to a personal attack on the contributors of that
> article? You've totally lost me.

No.  Labelling it as "unsuitable for reading" amounts to a personal
attack on the contributors.  Any time you enable censorship of
particular material, you are making a claim that it is unfit to be read.

In order to be effective, a censorship measure must actually accomplish
censorship -- that is, it must stop someone from reading the material
censored.

If you were to label my work in such a way that enables censorship
measures, then you would be making an implicit value judgment that my
work _should_ be censored; that the world is better off if my work is
censored than if it is not.  You would be saying that people need to be
protected from my work; that it will harm them or corrupt them; in
effect, that I have done something dangerous (or at least negligent) by
writing it in the first place ... or indeed, that I _am_ something
dangerous for _wanting_ to write about it.  These statements would be
attacks upon my character, and as such in violation of [[WP:NPA]].

To put it another way:  Why do we have a rule against personal attacks?
Because personal attacks make people feel less welcome and less willing
to collaborate.  Calling someone's work smutty or harmful to minors will
have that very same effect.


> >           PERS.2 == "Marking my work for censorship is picking a fight."
> 
> How bizzarre.

Not really.  How would you like it if someone went around to _your_
contributions and marked them up in ways you found insulting and
derogatory?  That would be a bad thing, and nobody should do it.  It
would be disrespectful of you as a contributor, and it would also be a
violation of Wikipedia policy.