2008/12/23 Thomas Larsen <larsen.thomas.h(a)gmail.com>om>:
I believe that the clause was originally written with
the
intent of giving readers fair warning about what they might run into,
not for justifying the inclusion of all types of material. Wikipedia
claims to be an encyclopedia; well, according to established standards
of traditional scholarship, this picture would not be displayed in any
"true" encyclopedia—at least, I don't see Encyclopædia Britannica
including it anytime soon, and Wikipedia's co-founder Larry Sanger has
already stated that the image won't be appearing on Citizendium (see
http://blog.citizendium.org/2008/12/11/citizendium-safe-for-virgins/).
A traditional encyclopedia would no have an article on the album
because it really isn't that well known so from that POV your point is
untestable. Still lets look and a better known album cover with
similar issues. Blind Faith (album). While I'm not aware of any
encyclopedia talking about the album the cover appears in Dorling
Kindersleys 100 Best Album Covers: The Stories Behind the Sleeves. So
it appears that that is the kind of image traditional information
sources include.
The argument from the standpoint that the picture has
not yet been
declared illegal under any jurisdiction, and thus can be included in
Wikipedia, seems even weaker than the previous one. It hinges on a
critical point—the assumption that if content is legal, Wikipedia can
and _should_ include it. This is incorrect, as I have stated and
justified above: Wikipedia claims to be an encyclopedia, and according
to this standard it should only include certain types of content.
Legality, therefore, can only define material that must be _excluded_;
it does not dictate what should be _included_.
You are confusing a single thread of an argument with a complete
argument it. The it isn't illegal argument is used in conjunction with
other arguments (a quick glance at how much the article talks about
the image shows that it's inclusion is encyclopedic).
Some users have expressed worry over the precedent
that might be set
if the picture was deleted or removed from the articles it appears
in—"Next," they say, "it'll be images of Muhammed." Well, I'm
not
going to argue here for the inclusion or exclusion of images of
Muhammed; but I will say that, unlike images of Muhammed, the Virgin
Killer album cover image and other pictures like it are considered
indecent, obscene, taboo, and/or distasteful by _general people_ (as
opposed to radical religious fundamentalists, free speech advocates,
commercial stakeholders, et cetera) in practically all human cultures.
Prove it.
Pictures like these can be described using words, and
they do not have
to be shown in all of their gory detail—personally, I have not viewed
the image myself, and have no intention of doing so, yet I have learnt
of its general content through what has been said about it.
I doubt it.
Should
Wikipedia, which claims to be an encyclopedia and reaches millions of
people daily—many, if not _most_, of them school students—really be
distributing images such as the one that prompted the IWF ban?
In this case yes.
--
geni