On 04/02/2008, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The least we
can do, really, is to make sure
that nobody sees a muhammad picture who doesn't want to;
If we do that then we also have to do it for anything else that
someone could plausibly be offended by - it's just no feasible.
Wikipedia is not censored, and that's the way it has to stay.
No, sorry, this is completely and utterly wrong. We don't "have" to do
anything, and we get to make our own editorial decisions on a
case-by-case basis. This is *our encyclopedia*. It is not a game of
nomic. It is not a judicial system. We are not slaves to precedent. We
make the rules.
"Wikipedia is not censored" is one thing. "Wikipedia is compelled to
be in-your-face" is another, and whilst the latter requires the
former, the former certainly does not require the latter. And we
certainly do draw lines on the acceptability of material - were
someone to start demanding we include actual hardcore pornography in
the article [[Pornography]] (or anywhere else), of course editorial
common sense would lead us to say - no, don't be silly.
This is a topic we can discuss without any illustrations without
materially harming the content of the article - it's a person of whom
no contemporary depiction exists, after all - and insomuch as the
*existence* of such illustrations is a valid encyclopedic topic, we
can easily have a seperate article discussing that.
This way also has the advantage - shocking, I know - that it doesn't
grievously upset a staggeringly large number of people. Apparently,
this fact makes it somehow morally dubious, which I have a hard time
comprehending.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk