[SharedKnowing] Wikimedia to adopt a stricter porn policy?

[David Goodman]

Yes, I not only fully accept the inclusion of pornography in a
reference work, but I think a modern online encyclopedia designed for
a general adult audience  to be woefully incomplete without it.
The only limitation  should be the extent to which  is actually
illegal in the most permissive practical jurisdiction, and I would
advocate that except for material involving children,  the proper
legal approach is that none of it should be.

I agree that our two approaches are so  incompatible that there is no
point in trying to resolve them.

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 11:04 PM, Larry Sanger <sanger at citizendium.org> wrote:
> David, you can even maintain your view that Wikipedia and Commons should
> stay wonderfully libertine, and yet also agree with Jimmy Wales' actions.
> He's saying, basically, that Commons should remove the massive amounts of
> redundant and gross stuff that is of use to nobody except porn hunters.
> Quite apart from all notions of family-friendliness, a massive porn database
> (which is what Commons now includes) is a mighty funny extension of the
> missions of reference and education.  Or do you want to maintain that the
> causes of reference and education are furthered by having as much of the
> stuff as possible?  If you think it's reasonable to limit the amounts, well,
> then you're not disagreeing with Jimmy Wales, it seems to me.
>
> Also, I'm puzzled because on the one hand you say that porn is "portrayal of
> sexual activity intended to arouse sexual desire," yet you immediately go on
> to say that you can only judge whether something arouses *you*.  So you seem
> to conclude that something is considered porn only if it excites *you*.
> Well, what if you found pornography thoroughly disgusting, as some people
> do?  Would you say that there is no such thing as pornography for them
> because none of it excites them?  Anyway, it was literally false, and
> obviously so, to say that "I can only judge [that something is porn] on the
> basis of whether they tend to excite me."  You might be an unexcitable old
> geezer, like Cephalus in Book 1 of the Republic, and yet you can certainly
> determine that most of the pictorials in "Penthouse" and most of the movies
> made by Tera Patrick are porn.
>
> What you say regarding pornography--implying that pictures of semen on a
> woman's face, fully graphic displays of anal sex, "fisting," and much, much
> more of the same, are *not* pornography--is merely grasping at straws.  If
> that's not pornography, then nothing is.  I suspect that you simply dislike
> the whole concept of "pornography" at least when somebody is talking about
> making rules against it.  There is a more honest and courageous way to state
> your position.  You can say that you fully embrace the inclusion of
> pornography in a reference work.  If there's nothing wrong with it, why not
> say so?
>
> If you say that, I'm not going to argue with you on that; I haven't stated
> my full views on the subject, which would take me a long time to do.  I just
> thought it was very newsworthy that Wales took this action.  I'll save my
> own philosophizing on the subject for another time.
>
> --Larry
> -----
> Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D. | http://www.larrysanger.org/
> Editor-in-Chief, Citizendium | http://www.citizendium.org/
> Executive Director, WatchKnow | http://www.watchknow.org/
> sanger at citizendium.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> SharedKnowing mailing list
> SharedKnowing at mail.citizendium.org
> http://mail.citizendium.org/mailman/listinfo/sharedknowing
>