[WikiEN-l] opt-out and censorship (was: "I want to at least kill the responsible person.")

[Chris Howie]

On Feb 5, 2008 2:42 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems to me that you're effectively saying that many Moslems
> shouldn't be able to see any of the wikipedia's images, and trying to
> enshrine this as policy.
>
> If that's not what you're saying, then I'd like to know what in
> practice the difference is, given that there's no domain/browser way
> to avoid just these images.

What I'm saying is that if they don't want to see those images then
they have a few options:

1. Turn off images in their browser.

2. Don't go to those pages.

I would not consider us catering to their demands that we remove the
images an option.  Hiding the images until they are clicked is an
unacceptable compromise and presents many technical issues.  (For
example, they would either all be shown or all be hidden when printing
a page.  What do we do if JavaScript is disabled, etc.)

The goal is to write an encyclopedia.  To provide a free resource to
the world.  Babysitting and shielding our users from content they may
not like is not our job.

If someone complains about these kind of images, just link them to
[[Wikipedia:Content disclaimer]].  If they still complain the only
sane response is "so cry me a river."

-- 
Chris Howie
http://www.chrishowie.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers