[Wikipedia-l] Re: wikipedia in China

[Henry H. Tan-Tenn]

Anthere wrote:
> I agree with this again.
> 
> I also think, in the long run, it is worth to drop a couple of topics, 
> or at least to try not to focus to strongly on them, rather than having 
> the whole project blocked.
> 
> Is that censorship ?
> 
> Well... self-censorship, perhaps.

Hmm...not sure where this will lead.  Presumably user pages will also be 
censored, as are certain politically sensitive user names.  And of 
course, as part of the registration process, users should also digitally 
pledge that they are not members of certain organizations.

> But
> * the day clitoris pictures are put on the english wikipedia without 
> causing an uproar (because clitoris are shoking and might get wikipedia 
> censored in schools)
> * the day we can put ethnic statistics on the french wikipedia without 
> causing an uproar (because "races" do not exist and publishing stats 
> might get wikipedia shut down for publishing illegal information)
> 
> we can talk again about self-censorship :-)

There is a difference, though, between editors and readers "causing an 
uproar" (which is arguably a mark of a healthy wiki) and a state 
"causing an uproar".  As Wikipedia is a wiki, it'd be nice if state 
agents actually show up and cause such an uproar (even the vandalism 
kind), but that does not seem to be the case here.