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(Redirected from Misplaced Pages:****) Guideline concering offensive material

This page is about the use of potentially offensive words and images in articles. For the use of such material on talk pages and project pages, see Misplaced Pages:Civility. For the policy against offensive usernames, see Misplaced Pages:Username policy § Disruptive or offensive usernames.
Blue tickThis page documents an English Misplaced Pages content guideline.
Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.		Shortcuts
This page in a nutshell: While Misplaced Pages is not censored, Misplaced Pages articles should only contain offensive words and images for a good reason. Do not use disclaimers.
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Misplaced Pages's encyclopedic mission encompasses the inclusion of material that may offend. Misplaced Pages is not censored. However, offensive words and offensive images should not be included unless they are treated in an encyclopedic manner. Material that would be considered vulgar or obscene by typical Misplaced Pages readers should be used if and only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available.

How to treat offensive material in articles

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In original Misplaced Pages content, a vulgarity or obscenity should either appear in its full form or not at all; words should never be bowdlerized by replacing letters with dashes, asterisks, or other symbols. However, when quoting relevant material, rendering a quotation as it appears in the source cited overrides this style guideline. Where it is necessary to indicate that an alteration is carried over from a quoted source, " " or "" or a similar phrase, within single brackets, may be used.

Discussions about whether to include a vulgar or explicit image or verbal expression are often heated. As in all discussions on Misplaced Pages, it is vital that all parties practice civility and assume good faith. Labeling content with such terms as "pornography" or responses to content with such terms as "censorship" tends to inflame the discussion and should be avoided. Objective terminology is more helpful than subjective terminology.

Disclaimers should not be used in articles that contain potentially or patently offensive material. All Misplaced Pages articles are covered by the five official disclaimer pages.

"Not censored" does not give special favor to offensive content

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A cornerstone of Misplaced Pages policy is that the project is not censored. Misplaced Pages editors should not remove material solely because it may be offensive, unpleasant, or unsuitable for some readers. However, this does not mean that Misplaced Pages should include material simply because it is offensive, nor does it mean that offensive content is exempted from regular inclusion guidelines. Material that could be considered vulgar, obscene, or offensive should not be included unless it is treated in an encyclopedic manner. Offensive material should be used only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available.

Especially with respect to images, editors frequently need to choose between alternatives with varying degrees of potential offensiveness. When multiple options are equally effective at portraying a concept, the most offensive options should not be used merely to "show off" possibly offensive materials.

Images containing offensive material that is extraneous, unnecessary, irrelevant, or gratuitous are not preferred over non-offensive ones in the name of opposing censorship. Rather, the choice of images should be judged by the normal policies for content inclusion. Per the Misplaced Pages:Image use policy, the only reason for including any image in any article is "to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter". Any image that does not achieve this policy goal, or that violates other policies (e.g., by giving an undue or distorted idea of the subject), should not be used.

Images should respect the conventional expectations of readers for a given topic as much as possible without sacrificing the quality of the article. For example, editors selecting images for articles like Human body have thousands of images of naked bodies and body parts available to them, but they normally choose images that portray the human body in an unemotional, non-sexual standard anatomical position over more sexual images due to greater relevance to the subject. The more sexual image is not given special favor simply because it is more offensive. Similarly, editors of articles such as Car do not include images of automobiles with naked women posing near them, even though such images exist and "Misplaced Pages is not censored", due to concerns about relevance. Misplaced Pages is not censored, but Misplaced Pages also does not favor offensive images over non-offensive images.

See also

Official Misplaced Pages policies

Options to hide an image

Other related pages

Notes

  1. Here a "typical Misplaced Pages reader" is defined by the cultural beliefs of the majority of the website readers (not active editors) that are literate in an article's language. Clarifying this viewpoint may require a broad spectrum of input and discussion, as cultural views can differ widely.
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