On 9 March 2012 14:17, Thomas Morton <morton.tho...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> We also work quite well as a filter of information. And it is improving > this that we are currently discussing. > > Improving the filtering of information is a critical facet of making it > accessible to as many people as possible. If a Muslim refuses to go to > Wikipedia because of our image policy - which we (realistically) impose on > him - then we have failed in our core objective. I had sworn off commenting on these discussions some time back, but I want to chime in to support this point - the way in which our community handles controversial content is itself a viewpoint position, and potentially a flawed one. Opposing changes to the way we handle and display this content isn't as simple as defending "neutrality"; it's arguing for retaining the status quo, and thus enforcing our communities' current systemic biases and perspectives on what is acceptable, what is normal, what is appropriate. Those perspectives may be "better" than the alternatives - sometimes I think so, sometimes I don't - but by not doing anything, we're in real danger of privileging the editing community's belief that people should be exposed to things over a reader's desire not to be exposed to them. The image filter may not be a good solution, but too much of the response involves saying "we're fine, we're neutral, we don't need to do anything" and leaving it there; this isn't the case, and we do need to think seriously about these issues without yelling "censorship!" any time someone tries to discuss the problem. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
