Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/11 February 2012/Muhammad-images

A very gentle solution

I was thinking about this and posted the following on Muhhamad/Images talk. It probably belongs here. I'll leave it to you here to decide whether to incorporate any of the suggestions in the RFC. --HectorMoffet (talk) 00:26, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's essential to keep our values intact, but at the same time, let's recognize we're upsetting lots of people, and if we can try to gently avoid that, maybe we should.

Javascript can "hide all images on article" very easily.
For pages where a huge number of truly independent complaints come in from our readers, we add a template reading:

"Large numbers of readers have requested this feature be implemented on this page. If you want to hide all the images in this article, click here".

We keep our reasoning very simple:

Lots and lots of people want to be able to insta-hide images on this page.
We give the reader the choice of what their computer monitor will render.
Insta-hide would hide _all_ images on the page, not just single images.
1-click to instantly reveal any hidden image.
No one image is ever singled out as "offensive"-- all or nothing.
No justification is given beyond "Large numbers of readers have requested...".
Insta-hide is never ever set to 'hide by default".

That is, all we do is include in Javascript what really should be done at the browser level, but default browser installs don't have it. There is something just plain wrong about making an islamic reader have to learn about firefox extensions in order to just read the article on Muhammad.

We cannot budge one inch on stopping our readers from being able to see images of Muhammad. NPOV is not up for debate.

But, we do have wiggle room in allowing our readers to choose for themselves what images will be rendered on their physical displays. That is a user right-- one skilled techie users already know how to use. Unfortunately, we need to provide a reasonable accommodation to the the non-tech-saavy user to exercise that same right. "Turn off all the images on this page" isn't that big of a feature request. We already tell skilled techies precisely how to use this, but we have to make the user interface a little easier. There are 80 year old non-native-EN-speakers out there who are using the internet for the very first time-- we can't seriously expect them to actually rejigger their browser.

Who hates this idea? who likes it? --HectorMoffet (talk) 00:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a brilliant idea. But beyond a disclaimer (which I think has a reasonable amount of support) I don't know what we can do. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:44, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, time to close this

The caravan has moved on & anybody posting here now is on the wrong page. I think it worked well. Thanks to all contributors & Xavexgoem. Johnbod (talk) 18:58, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other editors have tried to explain several times why the text of the current RfC is factual wrong, misleading, preoccupied and biased, in particular the part Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Muhammad_images#Background_on_images_of_Muhammad, for example the notorious note #5. Nobody wishes to destroy your happy mood, however if anybody posting here is on the wrong place then I don't see you will barking dogs let disturb your caravan anyway, --Rosenkohl (talk) 19:52, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]