[Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:42:36 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia
> > wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the
> > foundation.  Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork
> > and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
> 
> This is really over-the-top, Gregory.

Is that really the case?
I'm surprised that you would disagree with the statement above, that
if someone's intention is to censor encyclopedic content, based on
such value judgements, that they are at odds with the project and
should work on something else.

I certainly see how you might state that I was mistaken in classifying
the proposed measures as censorship, or that it was rude of me to
insult someone of unquestionable value...

> My problem with people using the word "censorship" in talking about
> this very complex issue is precisely that we get responses like yours,
> which are really not very helpful and short-circuit our ability to
> think critically about the issue.
> 
> We are *all* (the major participants) opposed to censorship (in the
> sense that you mean), including (very strongly) Anthere.  It is our
> goal to educate and inform, not to shock, offend, or titillate.
> Of course there is a tiny majority of people who are interested in
> censoring Wikipedia.  Fine.  Ignore them.

This is quite heartening to hear reaffirmed.

At the same time, what I see being proposed is the idea that it's
acceptable for wikipedias in differing languages to have a differing
set of standards, and this is the one, and perhaps only, point where I
am reasonably confident that I am not misunderstanding Anthere.  I
don't see how these ideas can coexist.

If our test of a material is it's value to educate and inform, is it
not true that the same material which would educate and inform would
also educate and inform people of another language?

A policy that says that we will exclude content differently depending
on the language of wikipedia, says that we are applying an additional
test, a test of moral rightness.
 
> But don't imagine that those of us who think that, for example, it is
> blatantly obvious that the [[Imgae:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] image is wildly
> inappropriate for wikipedia are simply prudish censors.  Such a view
> really fails to respect and understand the point that we are making.

This thread is surrounded on all sides with bad information...
Anthere's initial concern was primarily about vandalism... But
vandalism is an issue that we can't even come close to solving by the
proposed measures that I objected so strongly to (value based
standards of content)...

The autofellatio image is a bad example because most people would
agree that it has some of the poorest inform to shock ratios of call
the contested images on wikipedia.  (I'd still argue it's of value, as
one person said after seeing it... "wow.. thats possible? eww",  but I
haven't been involved in the voting for that image and don't intend to
be)

I jumped in the thread because I believe that the idea of differing
standards inclusion standards in differing languages necessitates
censorship and I decided that it was a worthwhile matter which was
being ignored in the thread... because of the separately worthwhile
discussion of applying technical means to address that specific form
of vandalism.

> A respectful discussion of this difficult issue is hard to have if
> anyone who is in favor of deleting some images from wikipedia is to be
> shunned as a censor who ought to leave the project and fork.

My apologies, both to the list and Anthere, on this matter... My
attempt cut away issues I saw as extranious to the issue I wanted to
discuss (vandalism, that specific image,etc) came off as offensive. (I
may not care if you find a useful image on the 'pedia offensive, but I
really would hope you don't find my discussions as offensive.)

Grey paint begins with black and white.

I did not mean to imply that we should shun the issues or the people
bringing them, but rather strike up some vigorous discussion on this
important matter...   and through out some ideas that I think should
be widely acceptable, such as "if making good/evil value judgements
about content is someones goal then everyone would gain from them
working on a fork, given the intentions of the project".

> Especially, for goodness sake, Anthere, who is a hero to us all.

Well,  If I'm going to have to base my discussions on whom is
proposing an idea rather than the merits of the idea, then I should
probably give up now.... :)