On 5/31/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael(a)psi.co.at> wrote:
Yes, there have been polls in early February in which
a strong
supermajority made that decision.
Yes, I am listening to you, but you fail to explain,
why you consider
the removal of a religious insult vandalism. I've already explained
many times, why the (re)moval of the cartoons is *not* a deliberate
attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia. Instead, altering
the display characteristics of the cartoons would indeed increase
the quality of the article, because it would invite editors who feel
insulted by the cartoons to add valuable information regarding their
side on this controversy.
I'd like to add beforehand, that changes even if they'd be opposed
by *everyone else*, do not constitute vandalism according to
[[WP:VANDAL]].
<snip>
Okay, I'll do my best at explaining how I see the situation. The WP
community has the goal of creating an encyclopedia. As an
encyclopedia, it is our job to accurately describe and explain certain
issues. In order to determine the best way to explain or describe an
issue, we use consensus (i.e. supermajority... not democracy). In
this particular instance, the community decided that the best way to
explain or describe the issue is to show the actual images being
discussed. Images are an essential part of WP, as they say, a picture
says a thousand words (probably more). Therefore for a particular
topic, images can be very useful, no? So since the community has
decided that the images improve our ability to explain or describe the
topic, the removal of the images reduces our ability to explain or
describe the topic, thus being detrimental to the encyclopedia.
We understand people may be offended. We would be heartless to not
"get it" on this point. But should we remove every image anyone finds
offensive? This is a serious question, not just a hypothetical.
<Modified Godwin's alert> If an image of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is
offensive to Jews, should we remove it?
Including the image does not "disinvite" editors who may feel offended
to voice their opinion on the matter (You seem to be doing a great
job). There is always the talk page (which I thank you for using),
mailing list (Again, thanks), etc.
And I get that you weren't blocked for disruption. But that is what
was being discussed at the time, so I thought I'd speak up. Thanks,
my friend.
--LV