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List:       wikipedia-l
Subject:    Re: [Wikipedia-l] censorship
From:       Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-03-30 0:23:17
Message-ID: e692861c05032916232d929b6 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:16:10 -0600, Richard Holton 
> I don't think the issue is really about "right" or "wrong". I think
> that most people in most cultures would agree that "murder" is wrong
> (though they may define murder in differing ways). However, it would
> take a _very_ extreme position to suggest that we not have an article
> about murder in Wikipedia. Its wrongness does not at all suggest that
> is should not be covered.

I think of it as more of a meta issue. By deleting such images based
on that type of right or wrong you are stating that pornography
(nudity, sex, .. whichever applies) is right or wrong, that is, we
delete it because it's wrong.

Can we write a neutral article on pornography when we make the claim
that images showing nudity are wrong (by having a policy which
excludes such images)?
 
I don't think that we can rationally. It would be a very hippo
critical position which would be difficult to support with an
internally consistent policy.  If we can't write an internally
consistent policy on the matter, we invite everyone with a possible
objection to remove whatever content they dislike.

> However, I suspect you'd find much less agreement about including in
> that article a photo or a movie showing an actual murder. Again, this
> is not about right or wrong. It's about appropriateness. In this case,
> you might find substantial cultural variation, as well as differences
> of opinion within some cultures.

Well the matter is a little more complex, in that I don't think there
would be all that much objection to a murder clip cut down to the bare
minimum required to be informative beyond the lack of a murder clip. 
... Also, I can't even think of a situation where a murder clip would
even be as informative as the autofelletiao image.

 
> Making a decision to include or exclude such an image/movie from an
> article is not a question of censorship. It's a question of what is
> appropriate, which is subjective and will vary between cultures.

I don't agree, You can just as easily make the same claim about text 
"making the decision to include or exclude such text from an article
is not a question of censorship. It's a question of what is
appropriate".    Images are not all that different from text.

> To, for example, insist that an article on murder _must_ include an
> image/movie showing murder if a free, informational one is available,
> is to become enslaved to the concept of censorship as much as
> insisting that the article must not have such an image/movie. Either
> way, we are sacrificing our ability to apply editorial judgment.

This is a silly argument because it's addressing a point I have never
made and will never make.  I've never argued that an article must
contain anything, what it contains is a matter of concern for it's
editors.   My complaint is that we are talking about what articles may
not contain.
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