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

[Todd Allen]

On Feb 5, 2008 6:58 PM, Chris Howie <cdhowie at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2008 9:32 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 06/02/2008, Chris Howie <cdhowie at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Correction:
> > >
> > > If another race/group/whatever imposes a rule on themselves then it is
> > > not racism to *refuse to* bend over backwards to make sure what you do
> > > doesn't break their rule.
> >
> > Um, yes it is, depending on what 'bending over backwards' means in
> > practice (often that bar is set ridiculously low).
> >
> > Consider the case where the owner of a business may pass a rule that
> > none of his staff may wear hats (just for simple uniform reasons).
> >
> > Sounds reasonable, but in the UK, this was judged racist due to the
> > large number of Pakistan immigrants that wore turbans, since they had
> > to wear turbans for religious/cultural reasons, and since it greatly
> > reduced their chances of getting employment, and hence caused economic
> > hardship. Similar deal with some jewish people.
>
> Wikipedia doesn't have such rules for employment, so I don't think
> this analogy is valid.  It doesn't require people set aside their
> religious beliefs.  As I said, they have a choice whether they want to
> look at those articles.  Work is different -- you need to have a job
> to survive.
>
> > I really don't respect this argument you're making here Chris, it's
> > more or less inherently racist, and your argument that it's all
> > inherently simply 'PC' is not well founded. We need to have reasonable
> > discussions about tradeoffs, not simply declare that there is
> > absolutely no problem and not imply that anyone that anyone that
> > thinks differently is 'insane'.
>
> Insane within the goals of the project.  WP:NPOV, WP:NOTCENSORED,
> neither of these have been addressed by people supporting the removal
> or suppression of these images.
>
> I don't really respect your counterargument either.  You're proposing
> that we cave to a minority that has a bone to pick with a project to
> build a free encyclopedia.  We are in the (non-profit) business of
> providing information to people, including culturally relevant images
> that some people may find offensive.  There are many ways they can
> protect themselves -- turn off images for example.  This seems
> reasonable to me and doesn't require that we bend our core policies to
> appease anyone.
>
> > >I do not see how any sane person could argue that this will make
> > >Wikipedia higher quality.  Not one bit.
> >
> > Quality is a lot to do with how well you meet the users requirements,
> > needs or wishes; something that doesn't unnecessarily annoy the users
> > would be considered higher quality.
>
> The word I would dispute here is "unnecessarily."  As I've said, there
> are things on Wikipedia I find offensive.  The difference is I've
> learned that they are there for a reason and I don't have to raise
> hell about it.  I stay away.  What's so hard about that?
>
> It comes down to the fact that some people want us to protect them
> from things they may not like.  We only have to do this once before
> we're going to do it everywhere.  [[Wikipedia:Content disclaimer]].
>
> --
> Chris Howie
> http://www.chrishowie.com
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers
>
>
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Maybe we need a larger, more prominent disclaimer:

"WIKIPEDIA MAY COVER SUBJECTS OR CONTAIN MATERIAL WHICH OFFENDS YOU.
IF THIS IS THE CASE, PLEASE GO READ SOMETHING ELSE. IT'S NOT GETTING
CHANGED TO SUIT YOU."

-- 
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.