[WikiEN-l] Can we think about trying the "show" solution?

[Oldak Quill]

On 22/02/2008, cohesion <cohesion at sleepyhead.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >  There may be rare web browsers that cannot be told whether or not to
>  >  download inline images.  I don't think writing for those browsers
>  >  would solve the problem, which as I suggested in my earlier comment is
>  >  a matter of misconfigured liveware.
>
>
> This seems like a fine idea. How about we put a link to a help page
>  under controversial images explaining how to turn image rendering off
>  for the site?
>
>  I think a lot of people are losing sight of a very real issue. It is
>  offensive to many to have to placate religious views they don't agree
>  with. I don't want to add show/hide tags to images of Muhammad any
>  more than I want to ensure that nothing negative is said about
>  scientology, or that [[Creationism]] is portrayed as a scientifically
>  valid alternative to evolution. I am not Muslim, and I am not a
>  Scientologist, and I am not a Creationist.
>
>  I am a Wikipedian. Our values are openness, transparency, and
>  neutrality. I do not want to remove images that are relevant because
>  it upsets some people sensibilities. That is offensive to me, and I
>  think offensive to the larger internet community. We shouldn't rush to
>  placate a group of people that are peripheral to the project, while
>  deeply offending our core editors, and our own values.
>
>
>  Judson
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

Judson, thank you for expressing so eloquently a view that many of us
share. I am not a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. I do not want these
religious beliefs--or any other--to determine what I can and cannot
see. Religious absolutism has been the norm for thousands of years. We
are some of the first generations to have any freedom of religion,
freedom of expression and freedom of thought. Why would we voluntarily
give this up and allow religion to claim absolute correctness? If this
were the other way round, one would be delusional to think that
religion would give non-members any leeway.

I'm not trying to use "us and them" language and don't want to promote
that mentality. What I am trying to say is that those who wish to
believe a certain thing may do so, but can't expect the rest of us to
follow suit.

-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)