This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Per alec above, I've tried a rather radically different tack on this, completely redefining the proposal to match what has been described as the common ground. I think perhaps information overload led to the policy losing clarity, and hence support. I think starting from this point is more likely to result in a broad consensus. Less is more, perhaps :-) Privatemusings (talk) 22:16, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Im not sure that consent shod always be required as a rule, but maybe a strong reminder that determining identifiability should be taken with great(er?) care. I pretty much translate identifiability as "showing face", should that be different concerning sexual content?
And remember that we do require consent for all identifiable images etc taken in private areas (no pun intended!) and to the extent sexual images taken in public areas (why was I just about to write "pubic areas"? :P ) exist it shouldn't be a big problem as any picture of identifiable non-famous people without explicit consent is a obvious delete.
Ok, so maybe sexual content without explicit consent of non-identifiable people and of famous people in public places is a grey area, but thats really a small quantity of images and therefore imho a small issue, have got any of those in the past?? Lokpest (talk) 23:08, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the streamlined approach may work better for understandability. I didn't see much opposition to the categorization principles we proposed, so I'd like to see them put back in. I think it's ok to send most of the legal stuff away, but I'd put it in a subpage essay. I think it was a reasonable summary of Florida legal concerns for those of us who do not live in the jurisdiction. The essay can be rewritten if we ever put the server under a Scandinavian mountain :) (as it seems some opposers want). --99of9 (talk) 07:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I also had quite a similar thought as the poll closed. Reading through some of the more moderate opposer comments, one thing that seemed reasonable was this comments that said more or less like "not needed, should and already is covered in other policies". So yeah, maybe this should be a multi-policy summary, only briefly mentioning and linking to other explicit policies. Lokpest (talk) 04:17, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
tags
what tags do we think would be best on this page, as it stands? - I feel that the 'rejected' tag is a good fit for the larger proposal which was just voted on by lots of people, but I feel it's not so good once work begins on finding common ground, and moving forward - I've bunged both the 'proposal' and the 'rejected' tag up there for now, but that kinda looks silly, as if we can't make up our mind! Dunno what the best way forward is.... Privatemusings (talk) 22:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I put only the "rejected" tag back, as this is the state of the overall policy regarding sexual content. So far, no policy concerning this topic has been accepted. I'm not opposed to finding common ground, even though I personally don't see the need. As long as there has been no significant new proposal or development of this page, I'd recommend leaving it at that. Regards, -- ChrisiPK(Talk|Contribs)14:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
What has been rejected is historical proposals, not all future proposals. The historical proposals are duly tagged. In keeping with the principle that anyone can edit, I am removing the tag since editors are entitled to develop this page on a going-forward basis. Had all historical proposals under this heading been overwhelmingly rejected by both the community and the Foundation, which is especially conscious of the project's responsibilities to external stakeholders, I would agree that there should be a general advisory that any sort of policy under this heading would almost certainly be rejected. But that's not the case. As Sue Gardner has observed, "we’re the only major site that doesn’t treat controversial material –e.g., sexually-explicit imagery, violent imagery, culturally offensive imagery– differently from everything else," and my own view is that eventually the activists who continue to drive the project out onto the fringe as part of their anti-censorship crusade will be outnumbered as more "ordinary people" without an ax to grind get involved and the project accordingly becomes more culturally neutral. Those newcomers should not be precluded from addressing this issue.---Brian Dell (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Archiving
glad the vote was closed promptly, but maybe it was a little bit premature to archive everything?
there were multiple ongoing conversations on the page, mostly after the poll
The page had become so huge that even with broadband my ageing computer was straining to load it. Good move, but we should restore the vote result perhaps and definitely the discussions started after the poll, out of courtesy. Anatiomaros (talk) 00:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Not for you perhaps. Above a user said the size was a problem for him; I know I did not participate at the Village pump when I became active on Wikipedia because it was too tough on my computer back then. As long as the poll is easily reachable in the archive it doesn't have to be here. --LPfi (talk) 10:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I think the archive was a bit premature and excessive. I'd leave at least #16 on (if not #13 on) up for a few weeks. Tough to structure discussion if the issues are all buried. 69.142.154.1016:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Size may be a problem for some older computers, but we need to use reason in deciding which older/slower systems need to be accommodated. In some cases it may be best to leave behind the most antiquated of technologies and ask users with very, very old computers to upgrade and/or begin using library/institutional computers. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. My computer's 9 years old now and seems to be getting slower all the time, despite various tweaks and component upgrades. I've asked Father Christmas for a new one but he says I may have to wait till the New Year. :-)
Remember that even in Europe some people in rural areas are still without broadband or have only minimum broadband (lower than 2Mbps) as they are far from an exhange. Also, in the developing world you are lucky to have access even to minimum broadband. Anatiomaros (talk) 00:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Here in Nokialand the authorities seem to think 1 Mbps is what can be reasonably expected in the countryside (there is a dispute about copper cable put in place by the national telecommunications administration being scratched by the company it was transformed into, which means people will have to rely on wireless connections).
We may have to put behind the oldest technologies (there seems to be no mail server sending articles on request, as was usual in the 1990s), but we should do it only with a good reason. Internet connections in the third world is a real problem.
Now, however, this talk page is huge, and there's been no edits for more than a month. And archiver fails to archive anything. That's just silly. 85.159.228.404:09, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I went ahead and started Help:sexual content. Unlike this page, Help:Sexual content is intended solely to provide editors with information on the current status quo. It could use some further work, and I could use some reassurance whether it's actually useful. Wnt (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I removed or rewrote a lot more that was intended as new policy or was written supposing there would be new policy. --LPfi (talk) 12:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Feedback on a streamlined guide draft
draft for a guide, guideline, or policy that might, maybe, get very wide support.
Basically, stating what I hope are non-controversial principles and then listing some examples of how those principles affect the handling of controversial content.
Don't upload illegal content-- this covers almost all the the material we don't want on our servers.
Don't upload private pics without consent-- this refers to the issues raised by Photos of Identifiable People.
Don't upload useless content--- this references some of the specific SCOPEy policies like not your personal Web Host, notflickr, not amateurporn, etc.
There are a lot of ways to organize and present this material. I used this organization scheme because I think readers will find it straightforward, logical, and non-controversial. I tried find these 'self-evident' principles and then list the policies and guidlines that flow naturally from the principles. I also tried to make the policies seem like natural solutions based on shared values, rather than arbitrary decrees.
Except for the out-of-scope speedy deletion which has been removed, I _think_ this is functionally equivalent to the earlier draft, but the change in length and tone might help win supporters who were put off by the new "out-of-scope deletions" proposal or worried about 'instruction creep'. --Alecmconroy (talk) 19:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
i still think it's redundant to create a special policy for sexual content (& just about futile to try & get such a proposal passed!), but as a guideline i don't see anything objectionable in the 3-points listed, provided that item #3 is NOT used as a backdoor way of justifying the use of speedy for "SCOPEy" deletions. Lx 121 (talk) 05:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
If the last poll taught us anything, it's that scopey deletions are definitely still dead. I don't even really want to use the term 'SCOPE' in the policy, since it's been so misused in the past (and since it's 'wiki-speak' rather than English). I think the a better term is 'useless' or something like that. --Alecmconroy (talk) 20:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
These two examples should be clear enough to demonstrate how "sexual abuse" of children can be viewed in a very broad scope, and why the policy should state instead "Children engaged in sexual intercourse".
With this change then as a guideline this is harmless, but also redundant and unnecessary. Is this just instructing users on how to act, or does it give any authorization for speedy deletion?--AerobicFox (talk) 04:02, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
authorization for speedy deletion is its own topic, & is covered under deletion policies/guidelines. we do not need to do add anything to it here, & i think the results of the last poll showed a reasonably significant base of objection to broadening "speedy" powers.
"time-critical" deletions of material, items that need to be removed asap for legal or other reasons (i.e.: child porn, obvious copyvio, malware), are already covered by speedy now.
images that might or might not have legal problems, & aren't as "time-critical" (i.e.: non-obvious/possible copyvio, consent issues) are split between speedy & debate, based on strength of the evidence, effects of the removal, community opinion/objections, etc.
images that are not "time-critical"; not malware, & not illegal for commons to host, should go to community debate before removal; especially on questions of scope.
the only other really good reason to use speedy (for a "non-time-critical" action), would be for purely technical reasons, like bad name/rename, redundant copies of the exact same file, etc.
which means that yes, we should follow normal "scope" deletion procedure for all the stupid, trivial, low-quality images: of penises, puppies, kittens, flowers... whatever.
it creates a bad precedent to allow speedy for any scope-based deletions. if we did allow speedy deletion of sexual content as "obviously" out-of-scope, then either: a) we will eventually end up having speedy used for all kinds of "obvious" scope deletions, OR b) we make sexual content a bad category, deserving of "special treatment", which clearly & blatantly violates not-censored.
i know that i'm repeating arguements here, my own & others, but since everything before the close-of-voting has been archived, i'd like to make sure that the key points stay "current". Lx 121 (talk) 05:13, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm generally supportive and in order to be helpful and make the text bomb proof, I will play devils advocate-
Principles, Policies and Guidelines relating to Controversial Content- object- we must separate out the legal framework from principles policies and guidelines. It must be pointed out that the WMF must comply with US law, and chose to comply with Florida State Law, and within that framework there are extraterritorial obligations- otherwise we get the under a Swedish mountain argument again.
Section 1- this again is regionally specific- terms like law make assumptions as to which law- there are at least 6 that could apply- the position of the server- the photographer- the subject -and laws relating to the nationality of the subject- the photographer- the foundation: then the law when the image was taken, uploaded and today. The definition of en:Child Pornography needs clarification. And then some of the other restricted ares are weird to a European.
laws of FL- region specific abbreviation
Child Pornography -Citation needed- what is the definition of this term- regionally specific- where on the Copine Scale do you draw the line
contain individuals under the age of majority- ignoring what is the age of majority (that takes out Category:Lewis Hine- this is mind blowingly broad.
individual did not (or could not) give the necessary consent as required by law.- for example they were dead!- what law
Section 2. Again woolly when it comes to citations.
Commons guidelines hold -Citation needed-
Section 3
some special policies --Citation needed-
Finally this is all negative in tone, more Old Testament than New Testament, I think we should have a paragraph that celebrates the broadness of the acceptable material we host, and that we wish to host. --ClemRutter (talk) 11:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
2 things:
1. we already have clear policy about not hosting illegal content. it's obvious, & basic, & applies to ALL illegal content, both porn & non-porn. we do NOT need to re-invent the wheel on this one.
1. re: "consent" from dead people. i don't think we should carte-blanch that; it's not a simple question. if somebody uploads some good lincoln pornography, i wanna see it! ^__^
I will vote against any proposal which does not include two of the elements we debated for months and did not receive much serious objection during the poll:
An assertion of consent to upload for all sexual content (with the limited exceptions specified last time).
I also see no problem with those two points-- they might easier to be easier to adopt, though, if they were implemented as individual proposals, standing on their own, rather than as part of an 'omnibus sexual content' proposal, where dispute over other things drowns out the consensus on the uncontroversial parts. --Alecmconroy (talk) 20:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I think that would bring accusations of instruction creep. In my opinion the best thing to do here is to say everything we need to say, but say it briefly and clearly. There was minimal objection to either of these points when voted in the omnibus, so we just need to make the rest of the omnibus acceptable (i.e. no speedy deletions for obvious scope). --99of9 (talk) 21:10, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I object to both points. The first is beyond our abilities, there is no way how we could verify these assertions ans I doubt a policy is useful that has no way of verification. The second one is outside of scope for this policy. We are talking about upload and deletion in case of violation. No one would ever suggest to delete a file, because it is categorized wrong. The remedy for this problem is simply to remove the offending category, not the file. --h-stt!?12:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Feedback, Strategy, Forwardness
Wow-- what great feedback.
Basically, the main 'approach' I wanted out of this document was just to convey existing status quo, not create anything new policy. So, the specific "examples" of prohibited content should point to our existing polici110es.
So, for example, how do we define "Child Pornography"?? There are a lot of good answers for how we could define it-- but the least controversial answer will be to point to whatever existing policy is and just tell people to read that.
if this general structure and approach seems useful, we could start polishing by linking to the relevant existing policies. Likewise, if any of the current text misrepresents the current status quo, it's unintentional, and needs fixing. Citations are needed, and the text may need to be altered if not supported by the citation.
The important thing that I wanted to 'put out there', is just the basic framework of the document being a helptext or guide that provide a 'brief, coherent explanation" of how our multiple already-existing policies affecting controversial content.. --Alecmconroy (talk) 20:45, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Quick question-- if someone uploaded underage porn, the image would be deleted, and it'd presumably be referred to law enforcement. Where on Commons do we say that? The same goes for any of the other 'example classes of content'-- if the statement is a true description of the status quo, what should we cite to show each? --Alecmconroy (talk) 23:23, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
you might want to browse this 'office hours' session with Sue Gardner (relevant bit around 23.43) - or see the foundation-l post on the same matter.
bottom line is that although action is usually taken locally, often through a private conversation with a steward, or other functionary, the foundation itself doesn't get involved at all. As of today, and for almost a year, an image of a 16 year old girl masturbating remains available on this wiki to stewards, and local 'oversighters' - to my knowledge this hasn't been reported to any external agency by anybody. If you check this out, Robert Harris, the consultant who prepared the recent board study, is also looking into what foundation procedures may exist - but he hasn't had any answers to date (we've been just a tiny bit in touch privately). I think it would be a good idea to try and figure out some answers as to what's best to do :-) Privatemusings (talk) 03:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
This phrasing needs improving:
"Commons does not host: [...] Photographs that would be illegal to host because they contain individuals under the age of majority."
Basically, I'm guessing that under our status quo, we would require people in sexualized images to be at least 18. What's the least controversial way to word that? --Alecmconroy (talk) 00:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Another phrase that needs polishing:
"Photographs that would be illegal to host because the individual did not (or could not) give the necessary consent as required by law."
Again, I'm basically just trying to name a few different instances where legal concerns would actually limit our content. --Alecmconroy (talk) 06:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
UK to Block Pornography
People kept saying over and over that the US was too conservative, biased, etc. The UK will be blocking pornography, which potentially means us unless we start enacting such standards as the sexual content policy. So, can we drop the tired arguments and make it so that our UK users can actually continue using the WMF in the future? Ottava Rima (talk) 15:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I would rather stand firm and let them have to field the fallout if they block our entire site over this. We've had this fight with them before when they did the same over some individual images, and we won. - Jmabel ! talk16:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm with User:Jmabel. We should ignore these measures. If the UK really wants to make websites containing depictions of sex and/or pornographic media unavailable to children, they will have to block Wikipedia, because as a complete encyclopedia Wikipedia will necessarily contain such depictions (see e.g. en:Category:Sex positions, en:Category:Pornography). But even if this draconian measure were to go into place, any citizen has the option of "opting in" to allow their own household to continue to view blocked sites. People who rely on Wikipedia will no more tolerate the site being restricted than they tolerated the blocking of the site during the Virgin Killer incident - the net effect would be that nearly everyone will "opt in" and the measure will be (predictably) futile. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Children can't opt in. Don't you get it? We would be blocked in schools and other places unless we develop a way to provide an opt-in for viewing the pornography. By the way, the British government is making clear that children don't "necessarily" need to see sexual positions. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
We're already blocked in many schools in many countries, due in part to sexual content. I personally think that's the wrong decision for the children, but certainly it's up to local schools and local parents what policy to adopt. I reasonably assume under the proposed UK plan that individual schools could choose to make this material accessible if they want to. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Alarming though it is for those of us who have the misfortune to live in the polity known as the UK and who care about freedom, this is currently little more than a glimmer in a deranged right-wing politician's eye. The UK ISPs are currently opposed to a "voluntary" ban as it's completely impractical and expensive and the Con-Lib coalition government would probably collapse if an attempt were made to legislate it. Let's hope so, anyway. Anatiomaros (talk) 01:06, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for giving a personal analysis, somehow its always helpful with "inside knowledge" that know ho to interpret news stories, especially from not so well known media.
Checked out who these "www.news.com.au" are and turns out they belong to Rupert Murdoch's Australian branch. I think that tells something of how "fair and balanced" it is. Although I didn't find any obvious wrongs in this story, I checked them up because of an clearly obvious wrong in another article they published (Sorry Mr. so-called "journalist", but if you call the "House of Commons" the "House of Representatives", I'm afraid you FAIL!).
It might be interesting to debate what to do in a "worst case scenario" (however, I do not think you defeat your antagonists by becoming like them), but lets not panic and pretend that it has already happened. Lokpest (talk) 10:37, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
My comments were based on the wider reportage and analysis of this crazy proposal, which you seem to have missed altogether. I'm not speculating. I agree that the news.com article is loaded, of course, but how about the BBC's much more detailed coverage (here)? Read the BBC article. And yes, "don't panic" - as I said this is not likely to happen, hopefully, and if it does then we will just have to add the UK government to the growing list of repressive regimes which practise internet censorship and deal with it. Anatiomaros (talk) 19:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
You are 100% correct that I have missed out on this story, as I'm not from the UK and haven't been following international media since summer. Thats why I think summaries (and linking, I searched for news earlier today, somehow I missed that BBC article) like yours is so important to get a quick overlook. :-) Lokpest (talk) 01:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Odd how you base your statements on an ISP claim that they can't be blocked when China has proved that countries can do such. You attack one news paper revealing a strong personal political bias that, when combined with this bad information, makes your comments inappropriate to base anything off of. Hell, Iran and other countries already block access to Wikipedia so it is quite possible. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
You should be careful about trying to write off the comments of other editors on account of "political bias", you have already far ahead of everyone else in taking this deep into political waters with your little manifesto below. By the way, should we not also cater to the Iranian government, then, by moderating our content in such a way that they will allow us back in? --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:54, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Manifesto? It is rather clear that you are making personal attacks and acting incivily. Please stop. Furthermore, our WMF goal is to provide material to -all- people, which means catering to various things to ensure that. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:08, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
"It is rather clear"? I would presume only to yourself, since I was only advicing you not to proceed with unwarranted personal attacks, using your own statements as examples. But I would like to hear more about how your arguments here supports your claim of "catering to various things to ensure that" the WMF provides material to all people. --Saddhiyama (talk) 00:09, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Its foremost not a technical problem (although the Internet sees censorship as damage and tries to route around it) but a problem of the huge amount of management. Totalitarian states manages because they overblock, not only blocking that what they don't want people to access but larger parts of collection of information including false positives. China blocks all wordpress.com, even though I doubt that the Communist Party fears the blogs of 14-year old European girls, they just find that as an acceptable consequence for getting rid of a few potential dissident writings. And I doubt Iran has much problem with the wikipedia article on butter. Blocking in a democracy would at worst be sites that are clearly pornographic and maybe in extremes some parts of domains such as wikipedia and commons, not all of wikipedia (remember that only individual pages were inaccessible during the Virgin Killer Incident). To think that the UK would block all of wikipedia or commons under a Con-Lib government is out of all proportions. Thats confusing Conservatives with Norsefire... Lokpest (talk) 03:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
And as I said that wont happen in a democracy as it a hell of an overreaction. Please stop this ridiculous fear mongering. Lokpest (talk) 16:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
The US shut down websites with a vague claim of copyright infringement. Your claims seem to be based on nothing but wishful thinking. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, in the wikimedia projects there are every day a number of real (and not simple claim) copyright infringements that probably are in number much greater than all the "porn" pictures hosted on commons, someones discovered only after months or years, but for now the US haven't shut down anything... --Yoggysot (talk) 08:20, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
No, I simple give some objective facts (on commons and others wikimedia projects there are real copyviols, and not simple vague claim, some discovered long time after the upload), that show that your statement ("The US shut down websites with a vague claim of copyright infringement") is false. --Yoggysot (talk) 22:42, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Saying that the US and some other nations block web access or shutdown (when hosted in the national territory), some of the international best know piracy web site (that was online for years before the block), only a little part of the thousands and thousands of web sites with explicit copyviol material, is very different than saying that "The US shut down websites with a vague claim of copyright infringemen". So there is no need to ask for a zero tolerance policy for sexual files, basing this request on this false statementm applied to a UK law that, for now, does not even exist (and probably will never exist). --Yoggysot (talk) 05:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
If we were to do such a thing, why restrict ourselves to catering to UK right-wing "It's for the children!" lunatics? Why not cater to the politicial whims of Iran, China, Saudi Arabia etc.? --Rosenzweigδ19:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Let them do as they please. Why should we care if they block Wikipedia. Then its up to the people of UK to react and stop this nonsense. UK was the first European country (that does not count itself as part of Europe) that made such stupid decisions/proposals from time to time. I don't care. --Niabot (talk) 21:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps they are taking advice from the European government book that managed to get their citizens permanently blocked from looking at porn on flickr. John lilburne (talk) 22:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Politicians that won in a major political swing that affected most of Europe. The libertarian/libertine movement crashed 2 years ago and is falling apart. Even Amsterdam is cracking down on brothels and pot dealing, and will be banning tourists from them. It seems like the political support the pro-porn movement once had is long faded away. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for that wonderfully entertaining political manifesto, but it really has nothing to do with the subject at hand. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:54, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Obviously, people have no problem with UK children being denied access to Wikipedia. Since I am not British, I don't care either. Screw them and screw our whole basis being for educating people. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I am in at least partial agreement with Ottava Rima but not perhaps in the way intended: Screw the UK government. But not Wikipedia and Commons. Our educational mission continues regardless of what some reactionary governments may decide to be suitable viewing for their unfortunate subjects. And if the UK government ever were stupid enough to ban access to Commons it would probably be for another reason, one which many suspect is what lies behind this undemocratic and draconian proposed policy in the long run. Anatiomaros (talk) 23:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
The UK and many other nations have made it clear porn is not educational. Only a minority of participants from a few countries think otherwise. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Even if the government of "many nations" have declared "porn is not educational" that does not make it a fact. We should decide for ourselves on the issue. Lokpest (talk) 19:04, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
You pushing a fringe view that porn is educational does not make it a fact, especially when the majority of the world has far stricter limits on it than the US or Europe. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I think it is manifestly obvious that pornographic content is educational and irreplaceable regarding certain topics - such as, say, pornography, its production, and pornographic actors and actresses. That's why this material is generally considered in scope. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:02, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
China doesn't think so. Muslim countries don't. Porn isn't allowed in schools in most countries and restricted to those of a certain age. The reality does not back up your claim. Pornography is viewed by the vast majority of the world as one thing and one thing only: masturbation material. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
This whole section has nothing to do with the subject in hand, and can be safely removed. Scare tactics, U-turns, broken pledges are all major components of contemporary British politics. Reliable news coverage is difficult to obtain but Wikipedians should refrain from becoming party political and check the notability of their sources. I am afraid the original poster did neither. Erase and move on.--ClemRutter (talk) 14:04, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
UK isn't going to block us. But if any entity or jurisdiction does chooses to block us, that's okay. We're already blocked in a lot of institutions and jurisdictions in the world. But no matter who blocks us, we have a duty to keep delivering an unfiltered feed to whomever wants it-- even if we get blocked by a few or a many, for as long as people are willing to donate to the tune of $10 million a year to keep us online.. --Alecmconroy (talk) 01:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I find it a problem that we self-censor in the face of vague threats. I think most supporters of a free-knowledge project will do too. Do you find it a problem that we self censor Ottava? --Simonxag (talk) 19:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Removing porn is not censorship. However, having porn without requiring even the legally required proof of model consent is highly immoral and unethical. Why support a system in which stolen pictures of others are freely distributed and can cause major harm? And it is a shame you think free-knowledge = porn. No wonder so many of our credible academic topics are ignored even though we have plenty of people around. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Starting with a simple falsehood, building through a series of grotesque (and false!) underlying assumptions and "have you stopped beating your wife?" type questions, I think this is a troll. --Simonxag (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Of course its censorship if you remove it because of pressure from the outside relating to on how you are going to be received and treated. Self-censorship. I get the feeling that Ottava wants to get rid of the porn, and just uses this UK story as argument to try to convince us. That, or trolling. Lokpest (talk) 00:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
A more recent link from the BBC [1] (the UK state operated broadcaster) has a rather different take on the issue. Things are "floated", a scheme "might" work, but at the same time there is concern about blocking "sites that could be useful". Not quite the same story as was reported in part of the Fox network in a country on the opposite side of the planet to the UK! --Simonxag (talk) 12:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for making these edits on the project page, i got a little confused (i have reverted myself). But now i think i better make the point clear on the talk page. Sex is not a special case for any media. Other things (political views, dietary opinions, religious expression, etc) can also be quite contravercial, be created without explicit consent, be illegal, etc. The act of treating sex differently from everything else is something which needs to be defended, without appropriate and logical defence of that position this policy has no place anywhere. By default any category of the media should be treated just like any other one.
So let's take it one point at the time:
There is a large number of media on Commons which is created or released without the explicit consent of person(s) depicted there. So the consent rule should not be made as a part of Sexual consent policy, but as a more generic one... or not at all.
The point about some arbitrary series of bits being illegal in Florida, USA, etc. should perhaps be separated into Legal content policy, rather than being used as the way to exclude more sexual content. Also "Commons is not a law enforcement agency." should be added to "What wikimedia is not", as such the foundation should (because it is forced to) respond to the legal demands to take something down, rather than actively search for the content to remove.
Illegality in other countries is quite frankly irrelevant.
The (laughable) statement about there being too many images in some categories should either become a universal rule (it will never reach consensus) or be abolished as an argument all together. It must not be used as an argument against sexual content, which, if anything, is underrepresented on Commons (because of the legality issues and social stigma). (See also WP is not a paper encyclopedia)
The right not to be offended does not, and cannot, exist on the internet(clarification strikethrough by Lokpest (talk) 11:12, 26 December 2010 (UTC)). If the person views the Category:Human penis one should expect to see what the category defines. Perhaps there should be a rule about placing images into the most appropriate category, but the "special" categories for sexual images should be made when the subject is actually different (for example, Category:Food fetish is different from Category:People with food, but there should be no Category:War_photographs_with_nudity, because nudity there is not the point of the media.
How controversial some form of sexuality is should not be taken into account. Many political movements are quite controversial, and yet their depictions are allowed on Commons.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. But it should help to abolish the attempts at creating this policy (or at least make this policy nothing more than a reference to a other ones). Beta M (talk) 07:01, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with some of this.
1) Consent for sexual depiction is an entirely different matter than consent for having any picture of yourself. If I publish a photo of your face, obviously this does not raise the same issues as a photo of you having sex. If you really think there is no difference, just imagine it being on the front page of a newspaper. And if you don't see any difference even there, all I can say is that you are part of a pretty tiny minority.
2) Much as with copyright violations, the responsible thing to do is to proactively remove illegal material, not wait to be sued. In this case, all the more so, because the matter is criminal, not civil.
3) The Commons is not going to find itself banned from use anywhere because it has too many pictures of kittens. It will find itself banned from use in quite a few places if it overly resembles a home-made porn site.
As i understand it Commons is not a democracy just like Wikipedia, and thus "you are a minority" isn't really a valid argument, especially since it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it is true because it happened to be true in the past.
In Russia an image of somebody having heterosexual sex can get the person (maybe) fired. In that same country an image of kissing somebody of similar sex can get one killed.
Do you agree that you are using copyright violations as the reason to fight against sexual content then? If you do not agree, please explain why copyright violations are the reason to disallow sexual content without copyright violation or to allow non-sexual content with copyvio?
Commons can easily find itself banned for having images with swastika in Germany. Commons can find itself banned for having images of "God" (Allah in Arabic language) in many Islamic countries. The list can go on, and by that logic we should only allow a small subset of the material here.
2) No, copyright violations aren't the issue here. I was using that as an analogy. My point is that if there is content we should not host for legal reasons, then the responsible thing is for us to remove it proactively, not to wait until someone outside raises an objections. - Jmabel ! talk17:43, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
3) Germany has been quite sane enough not to ban an entire site because we host a small number of images they find objectionable. On the other hand, if we hosted hundreds of amateur photos people took of themselves in Nazi regalia (analogous to the hundreds of penis pictures), they might see matters differently.
At this point I am done arguing with you. I can't stop you from posting again, so you can "have the last word", but please don't mistake that for necessarily being right. Jmabel ! talk17:43, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
I was not arguing with you actually, i was posting for the benefit of those people who are undecided on the issue, so that they can make up their minds with all facts at hand. (2) You analogy is still flawed, because it does not describe why sexual content is any different from all other. And since it's no different, then different rules should not apply to it. (3) Germany has actually banned anti-racist sites because they had swastika with the red cross over it; German antifascist band "SS-Kaliert" was sued for having letters "SS" in their name. (See also w:en:Strafgesetzbuch section 86a). Beta M (talk) 06:11, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Sexual content shouldn't be special-- we don't need any special rules. But in the last poll, a lot of people did seem to indicate we should have some kind of document on this subject-- namely, how our existing rules affect the specific case of non-notable photographs of living, identifiable individuals.
Basically, we just want to make sure that:
Child porn stays out (along with all other illegal-in-florida-content)
Malicious third parties don't use Commons to publish images against the wishes of the person depicted in the photograph. (i.e. consent, BLP-like issues respected)
Neither of those are really special rules made up for sexuality. We can't host ANY illegal-in-florida content, for example-- whether the legal concern is child-porn, subject consent, or copyright. --Alecmconroy (talk) 12:57, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Beta M and also thinks that they only arguments stated thats even worth considering is the consent related. And speaking on that topic its important to remember that we do have a guideline concerning Commons:Photographs of identifiable people and that this say that we do require consent for photos depicting identifiable people taken in private places.
That leaves identifiable people being photographed against their will, while having sex in public, but that category ought to be a really microscopic amount of images, that can be treated ad-hoc given the circumstances (I think I feel that, basically its a delete, but I can think of examples that might make an exceptions if it had been photographed). Lets not try to create a problem thats not looking for a solution.
I think that this shouldn't be a guideline in itself but a summary of other relevant guidelines related to the subject.
We are a file repository, the choice of what is the image to use is made by the users in varous project: different user, different project, different needs, different choices. And this is true for every subject (i.e. look Category:Colosseum and subcategories). --Yoggysot (talk) 22:52, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Suggest usage on Convention on the Rights of the Child, and replace infobox image on Play, a nice image demonstrating the bonding of a child with an adult through the medium of play. Suncreams, Piaget's developmental stages--that is before we have the scientific articles on surface tension.--ClemRutter (talk) 01:18, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
How is this not "appropriate for educational purposes"? Children play naked all around the world, and you see naked children playing naked in many documentaries of various third world countries. There is nothing unnatural about children being naked, or sexual about this image. We should make sure we have consent, but this was taken in a clearly public area so it shouldn't be illegal. --AerobicFox (talk) 05:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it has an educational value when it comes to depicting naked child's play. However, giving Aberforth the benefit of doubt, maybe what he/she meant by the question asked was if it was an appropriate educational image to depict w:soap bubbles. Clearly thats not an optimal image for that subject and as you can see that image is not used in the Wikipedia article. But just because the image may be inappropriate in some cases doesn't mean it is not useful in other cases. Lokpest (talk) 09:33, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
How is this educational? Yes I have read the above responses but this is two kids playing blowing bubbles and the educational values outlined in the above responses are tenuous to say the least. Whilst this could be used to illustrate any of the above, it is not an optimal image for ANY of the described scenarios. It is simply a cute family photo of two kids playing, no more, no less. John lilburne (talk) 00:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that the original post was looking for guidance as to whether the image was educational or not. Not whether it should be deleted or not. Its a photo of two kids, nicely done, but there are 1000s of similar. Currently its used to illustrate clothing in Tamil, but one assumes that if this image is the most appropriate to illustrate clothing, but if it is then the person that reused it could have taken a similar one of their own kids. John lilburne (talk) 10:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I think there are not 1000s of similar photos on Commons. Censoring away nice images where there are nude people with the reason that there are similar images of clothed people available is against the policies about not censoring. Always using images of clothed children also gives the impression that letting children play nude is somehow unusual or immoral.
The editor using the photo may not have children, at least no Tamil children. I also think it is very odd to suggest uploading and using an image of your own instead of using existing images. If you have a better image handy, that's OK, but otherwise use your time where there is a lack of images.
I think there is no problem with having innocent images of nude children, but I think children might have problems with identified photos of them. Thus I would not publish photos of my children until they are adults. They can then give their consent in a meaningful way and will not have (future) classmates making fun out of it (being on Wikimedia might not be worse than wearing glasses, but the latter may be hard enough). I suppose the uploader of existing images have handled these concerns.
Why would anyone think that children playing nude was unusual or immoral? We all have children of our own, or young siblings, or our friends do. Its not as if nude children playing is a rare occurrence in most people's experience. I don't know whether the uploader got permission from the subjects for the uploads, but I suspect not. This one is from a set of candid shots of a group of kids playing in a fountain. Mostly they appear to be 12-13 yo girls, one with wet white pants that have become see-through, probably not something she'd want her friends to see. But she was out in public so she's probably fair game. John lilburne (talk) 21:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Why should we support such parental neglect of children? Should we host other similar pictures - kids playing in traffic, running with knives, drinking underage, and the rest too? By the way, in the US child pornography is not legal merely because it is done in public. I do find it odd that you would suggest public was okay when Germans are attacking Google for taking pictures of their homes from public streets. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
When you overreach like this you lose. It makes it far easier for those that want to keep such images to dismiss the argument as silly.
The photos are not child porn, no where near. They are however taken without consent. Now in the past publication of such images went through various layers of editorial control, by people and organisations that could be held legally liable, and who had some responsibility to the wider community within which they published.
Those controls and responsibility are no longer there. In the case of the wet pants girl it is highly unlikely that they would ever have been published, at least not the ones where her underwear is visible. John lilburne (talk) 09:48, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
A child playing naked is not equivalent to "playing in traffic, running with knives, drinking underage," and I believe I speak on behalf of most others in saying you need to reexamine what your definition of "parental neglect" if you believe letting your child play naked is neglectful.
"Should we host other similar pictures - kids playing in traffic, running with knives, drinking underage, and the rest too?"
Yes...
"in the US child pornography is not legal merely because it is done in public."
Where did I mention this specific photo? I didn't, so please do not set up straw men and make up false claims about my words, as that is incivil. And if you think naked playing is not akin to dangerous activity, then you obviously don't understand that clothing is there to protect the body - from cuts, sunburn, cold, etc. Running around naked can have nasty consequences. Ottava Rima (talk) 06:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I didn't realize you were not discussing the image we all were, but were talking about completely different images. Playing without clothing has been done for millenia, and is not at all dangerous. Besides the last time I checked we didn't censor images because they show people engaging in dangerous activities, especially where the level of danger is a sunburn.--AerobicFox (talk) 07:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Comment This talk page is about sexual content. It's interesting to see that people continue to assimilate nudity and sexuality or pornography on one hand and underage nudity and pedophilia on the other hand. I'm tired about this kind of simplistic amalgams. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk...10:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
How did you manage to get from A to B? The issue is nudity or sexual content and whether photographs of people in category should have given a) consent, and b) whether to accept any old photo of a nude person, or someone engaged in sexual activity, or whether there should be an overriding encyclopaedic justification for having it. After all if I want to see 1000s of creampies, leaking anuses, blowjobs, facials, erections, or whatever then there are no shortage of other places to go look.
So should Commons be a place for quality encyclopaedic images, or just another porn portal?
In relation to this thread the question is whether the image is of enough encyclopaedic value to warrant the keeping of a candid image of recognisable children, one of whom is nude, and where neither have appear to have given consent, to have their image published on a top 10- internet site, and licensed so that it can be exploited commercially. John lilburne (talk) 14:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry but I just don't see the link between all the things you talk about. This page is about sexual content. So there's no reason to speak about a non-sexual nude picture of a child on this page ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk...16:02, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
The issue is about common decency towards others, empathy, and stuff like that. In particular that should someone pose naked for their boyfriend they probably didn't expect, or agree to him making it publicly available. Additionally, should someone be walking up the stairs in the mall they probably didn't agree to someone photographing up their skirt, someone kid playing in a fountain and getting their pants wet probably hasn't agreed to photos being made public. The photo of the two kids on this page the parent hasn't agreed that their image should be used to illustrate some web page. The teen in the market in Africa didn't agree to her image being proposed as suitable to illustrate Primates.
I'm sorry that you can see that images of people ought to be given a minimum of respect regardless as to whether they have a cock in the mouth or not. John lilburne (talk) 16:46, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
They should be given respect. That is true also when they are taking a drink or reading a newspaper (perhaps a less respected one). And that should be handled in Commons:Photographs of identifiable people. I think the image here is quite innocent. Much more so than many possible photos of clothed children or adults. Consent may be needed, but I see no reason to discuss it in the context of Sexual content, unless nudity in itself (or child nudity particularly) is considered to be sexual. --LPfi (talk) 23:51, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately it appears that there are people who get off to such material. While it may be argued that they just get off in their own head and don't cause harm to real children because it's an innocent picture taken in a public park blablablabla, the project could just do as well without it and you know that it's better safe than sorry anyway. There are surely better images to illustrate pages with kids as a topic. I mean, what page do you want to represent with a rather low quality picture like that? Bubbles? Kids at play without clothes? What? By the way TwoWings, are you sure there aren't any secondary objectives for you in keeping the image? Did you like the stuff in that link Riana gave you? I'm not saying anything more about that, but it's a clear negligence on this project's part. Keeping images like that around... puts the safety of the subjects depicted and the people who access the images at risk, and the safety of the whole project as well. You wouldn't want the FBI to come a-knockin' to Commons' door for some stuff you could easily replace...
And in case someone wants to argue about guns, cars, etc. of course they're just tools that can be used for good and bad purposes. That image is a tool as well, that can be used for good and bad purposes (you can imagine them). That's why there are regulations for usage of guns and cars in an attempt to minimize bad outcomes. Similar regulations need to be made for very borderline images like these. Aberforth (talk) 23:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Your accusation is ridiculous and defamatory. You should be banned for such a gratuitous accusation about me ! There's no point answering nor "debatting" with such a stupid and narrow-minded argumentation. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk...15:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Wow dude. If you are insinuating what I think you are insinuating, you better come up with some proof quickly, otherwise your claim about TwoWings constitute a personal attack of the most serious kind. And no, we don't practice a "better safe than sorry" policy on Commons. If it is deemed legal and within policies it stays. I am glad that the recent polled policy did not pass, because it is now painfully obvious how the "out of scope" clause would be applied in all kinds of situations it was not originally intended for. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
The admin declared that they were known CP images, anyone asking to re-examine them afterwards shows very poor judgement at the very least, and the admin shouldn't have been offering to provide links by email. The particular images were subsequently oversighted too.
As this subject has been raised note that frequently an image will part of a sequence. The sequence may start off innocent but does not end innocently by any means. Frequently the 'innocent' images are used as calling cards, or adverts for the sick material. The innocent photos are part of the abuse. The kids featured can be quite renowned within the group of people looking for such stuff. Other calling cards are straight forward portrait photographs of kids by photographers that are jailed for possessing CP. You AGF on child photos at your peril. John lilburne (talk) 13:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I can see now that this is going nowhere, since this has obviously long since passed into the realm of scaremongering (and distatsteful personal attacks) rather than the presentation of actual arguments. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:17, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
(outdent) What sort of arguments do you want? The reality is that if someone is uploading images of kids then one ought to have provenance. Failing that if some one later says that the image is CP one needs to accept that and not argue the merits unless you know the full circumstances of the images.
Perhaps I'm jaded about it as I've seen too many unremarkable photos of a cute kid fully or partially clothed that tineye to Russian password trading sites many of which have 'Account suspended for child porn'. Of course there will have nothing like CP here, only total idiots post blatant CP onto public sites. But I'd be surprised if they aren't posting the 'clean' images.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying this is the situation with the photo on this page. One can see it is simply part of a candid sequence of kids at a fountain. It was IMO ill advised to make some of the photos in the sequence publicly available, and this one I don't think has much encyclopaedic merit, but those are another issues, already discussed. John lilburne (talk) 15:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Then I suggest you start arguing for that in the inclusion of the policy, instead of resorting to various scaretactic campaigns about Chinese censoring policies and calling other editors pedophiles as well as strawarguments about non-encyclopedic content. You may be surprised at how far a little good sense and goodwill will take you. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Consent is not legally required for public photos.
Requiring "proof" of consent for all photos would remove enormous amounts of content, and would be nearly worthless since proof is very easy to fake unless we required over-the-top verification like videos from the people, etc.
Commons is a place of free content, when the question of quality comes up most people air on the inclusionist side of keeping images that may not be fit for the "top-10" internet sites, and seek more for images that will be useful. --AerobicFox (talk) 08:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
It would be a sad day if we were only ever limited in our actions by what was strictly legal. It is not illegal to photograph overweight teens in the park and then post them on websites with the title of "Fat Slut" one would hope that most people, on a responsible website, would see that the legality is of minor concern.
Don't kid yourself few are going to be using Commons hosted images without having all the boxes ticked, it is far too risky, and as such all those images are useless as stock or reuse. Example earlier this year a photo came to light that a bored 10 yo had taken of itself in its underwear and posted to Commons. A CC license is a legal agreement which 10 yo is not old enough to enter into.
This stuff is far too dangerous for outside use. It can only be reused by a site that has abandoned responsibility for what it hosts. John lilburne (talk) 13:18, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Disrespectful use of images harms photography. Schools ban parents from taking photos and videos at school plays, parents get hassled photographing their kids at school sports, harassed when photographing their kids playing in the park. The predatory street photographs, and the willingness of the irresponsible to host them, turns everyone with a camera into a suspected pervert. John lilburne (talk) 23:30, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
We have "moral issues" stated in Commons:Photographs of identifiable people (and some of those are law where I live; calling somebody a "Fat Slut" could give you a lawsuit). Those guidelines should be followed and we could perhaps make them clearer in some respects.
But I do not understand the talk about uselessness. Images of children playing are good to have. There is no problem using the image above on responsible websites or in responsible dead wood publications, as it would have a respectful context. It can be misused of course, but so can any image of a pretty woman or handsome man. The main question is about whether those children are harmed, and I think the only such scenario would be nasty schoolmates.
I think you need to reassess what it is that responsible publications actually do. A couple of years ago I was watching a parade with a load of people lining the road, two of the local news photographer were covering the crowd, mainly photographing the kids sitting on walls or by the side of the road. Guess what ... before they took any photos of a kid, they first made eye contact with the parents to seek approval, and only after the parent had signalled that they were OK about photographs being taken by the press did the camera focus in on the kid. If a parent shook its head, they simply moved on.
If images of children are good to have then get ones where consent has been given, take ones of your own kids, and licensed them BY-SA.
"Is this image appropriate for an educational purpose?"
This is what started this discussion and what I and others were arguing about. If you wish to nominate that image for deletion based on the moral rights of the child being photographed then by all means nominate it for such. I'm only concerned right now with the arguments however that it is illegal, or that such an image is tasteless child pornography, and that is justification for a policy banning images of nude children. --AerobicFox (talk) 23:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
It IS child pornography according to the majority of those backing this proposal. Through out the discussions on this page people have said we should remove all image of animals mating as they have "no educational purpose", not host images featuring children doing dangerous things, and a whole host of other ridiculous things. If you have an issue with this image then address it individually, don't try to make a policy based off of one image.--AerobicFox (talk) 06:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Have you read the discussions we had before the poll? I think they give a good picture of the thoughts of many of those supporting the proposal. And I remember nothing in those discussions about removing all images of animals mating, nor of children doing dangerous things. In the poll there where some users that did not want us to have anything resembling pornography, but I think they were a clear minority. Even Ottava Rima does not say we should delete all images of the kinds you mention. --LPfi (talk) 20:13, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
"Even Ottava Rima does not say we should delete all images of the kinds you mention."
O rly?
"''Why do you want images of animals having sex? This is no way to claim it is educational but there are many justifications for it that are directly against WMF policy and the rest."
"Plus, google is freely accessible for people. They can use that to search for things. Encyclopedias are primarily text based. "
By Otta Rima, see article poll.
"Why should we support such parental neglect of children? Should we host other similar pictures - kids playing in traffic, running with knives, drinking underage, and the rest too?"
This latest photo is totally nuts. Will people please think. No, I'm not in favor of censorship but the Commons has to function in a wider political world where there are moral panics going on. I accept that editors are doing nothing to harm a child or encourage others to do so. I accept that this is a good faith attempt at making a point. But don't putanythingthat can be readily labeled kidiporn on the Commons. --Simonxag (talk) 03:12, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
That was a comment about an image which has been removed from the discussion not about the innocent image at the top of this section. --Simonxag (talk) 03:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Right, anything thing that is a sexualized photo of a child I think should be deleted. I just don't want the criteria for sexualized to be nude. I want them to be looked of like "If this was of an adult would it be porn?"--AerobicFox (talk) 05:33, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
A good start, but a sexualized photo of a child doesn't need to be porn, nor does it have to be nude. I've bounced photos to flickr that were of kids posed on a bed with just a bare covering of the pubic area, or they are photographed with lube and sex toys. Few parents would photograph their kid like that. John lilburne (talk) 10:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
This reminds me of a complaint I saw by a law professor: the obsession with "child pornography" makes children themselves "pornographic". I think that the image above of the child playing with bubbles is just about the sweetest, most innocent image we have on Wikipedia. Just because a rearguard of censorship true believers wants to keep a category of pictures people can be prosecuted for shouldn't mean that we let our eyes be turned into the eyes of child molesters. Wnt (talk) 03:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Re: Proposal on Tagging & shuttering
Text:
The developers should consider altering the Mediawiki to allow individual users the ability opt-in to a feature that would 'shutter' controversial content based upon user-tagging of controversial content. To be culturally fair to all Wikimedia's users and avoid inter-cultural strife, such a feature should 'user customizable', allowing each user to decide for theirself what images or categories should be shuttered for them.
Reply from Beta M
Purely unworkable. Who is going to be the decision making body for what or is not 'controversial'? Images (video and audio) are simply not categorised in that way. If somebody does not want to see interracial mixing would we have to categorise every image with people of different ethnicity in such a way, wouldn't the act of doing so be 'controversial' to other people (i.e. those who want to abolish the concept of race all together). The truth of the matter is that such a proposal would be laughed at anywhere except sexual content, and i believe that it should be dismissed in the similar way here also. I people are upset about some arbitrary issue, they should not try to block it, but rather seek help; encyclopedia cannot be "safe" for such people by the very definition of the term. Beta M (talk) 09:11, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Agree that this feature, if implemented, would be very, very different from Categories. Right now, we use consensus to decide as a group whether an image belongs in a category. But 'Controversialness' won't work that way, because people have such great diversity in what they consider offensive.
There can't be any single decision-making body that definitively rules on what is controversial or non-controversial-- it would just lead to endless arguing. Instead, users interested in this feature would have to self-select into sufficiently likeminded groups to collaborate on tagging. And we would get people wanting to filter all images of inter-racial couples, same-sex couples, and everything in between.
I think content filtration is a job best handled by people unaffiliated with Wikimedia-- we're the library, we are here to promote information spreading, not impede it. But if enough people really think we should make a tag-and-filter system, we could. The 'right way' to do filtration is to recognize the overwhelming diversity of people's ability to be offended, and then empower them to make their own choices. The 'wrong way' is to do filtration is to make a single list of 'controversial images' and force everyone to use the same list, force everyone to argue about what should and shouldn't be on the list.
I think some content filtering is absolutely must have for Commons. Not only sexual & other "controversial" stuff, but, for example, filtering out low quality or somewhat redundant pictures (different photographs of the same 2D artwork, source tiles for panoramas, very similar photos when it's hard to decide which one is better and so on) for ordinary category viewing. Trycatch (talk) 15:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
There is no problem creating a category of "high quality images of X" or "low quality images of X", whch has been done for some categories. The problem is the work involved in picking the images that should go in that subcategory. Tagging is no easier.
For controversial stuff there has been the suggestion of having user maintained lists, where one user is responsible for every list and can make arbitrary decisions, while others decide what users' lists they include in their white- or blacklists. The problem with such features is that they make the sites easier to censor, be it by China, Iran, UK or Finland. I do not think we have to be neutral or positive about others censoring us.
Categories like "low quality images of X" (or "controversial images of X") are just a hack -- it does not solve all problems (barely solves any problem), and at large scale such category system is unmanageable. What about censorship -- any improvement in structure, in organization, in metadata of media on Commons makes selective third-party censorship easier, while chaos in media organization makes it hard. Well, any technology can be used not only for good but for evil as well, and it's hardly a reason why we should stop to improve management of our media. Trycatch (talk) 14:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I think that if (and thats a big if) we should have something of this it should be an opt-in where you specified which categories you want to block. That way folks who dont want to look at sexual content can just filter that category out. One might say that these people should just avoid these categories, but mabye it could work as parental control for parents (and/or schools) that dont want their kids to look at some of our stuff. On the other side, if its an opt-in (and it absolutely should be if it should exist at all) one could just log out and it would be gone. Still, maybe small kids aren't that smart, maybe they are, I don't know. Somehow I feel this is a waste of time. Lokpest (talk) 15:41, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Please let's just forget about this proposal. I'm not even sure why it is featured on the proposed policy/guideline page in the first place. Many arguments and comments have been given above about the difficulty of implementing such a system. It seems both unworkable and undesirable. It would lead to a fragmenting of Commons and the Commons community and is also a form of censorship, even as an 'opt-in'. Why burden ourselves with this? Anatiomaros (talk) 19:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
1. China has a serious crack down on porn, and being 1/4th of the world's population suggestions that the claims of "American bias" were false, as the majority of the world lives in cultures that have strong censoring of nudity and pornographic content.
2. China has blocked Facebook and other groups.
Since the WMF is intended to be educational for all children, it would seem necessary that we follow Britannica's example of not deeming pornography "educational" so that we could reach 1.6 billion people. Ottava Rima (talk) 06:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
If Google can't get in to China, then I don't think Wikipedia stand that great of a chance. If you wanted to play by their rules you would have to also censor out all info on Chinese human right's violations, criticism of Mao, etc, and not just pornography. Keep aiming at increasing censorship though, who knows maybe with enough censorship we'll even be allowed into North Korea. --AerobicFox (talk) 07:30, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
If you look at the url of the story quoted above- you will see it comes from a UK publication that is totally unreliable. In the last ten years it has been notable only for all the libel suits it has lost.
Ottava Rima it is clear from your various posts, that circumstances have caused you to have extreme views, and you will go to any length to try to warn us of the dangers you perceive. Please take a step back, and understand that others do see different ways forward- have different limits and are concerned that a narrow and repressive form of childhood puts children in greater danger from abuse. Please take a step back. Commons accommodates all of us. --ClemRutter (talk) 11:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Peter Damian, stop derailing this discussion with your personal grievances about subjects that haven't got the slightest connection to this topic. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm commenting on the irony of those who defend freedom of expression when it comes to quite trivial and rubbishy things like badly photographed vaginas, but insist on the removal of encyclopedic subjects. That's my grievance. Do you want amateur pornography, or do you want an encyclopedia? The choice is yours. It is far from a personal grievance, Wikipedians. Ottava's point is the real one. Do you favour education and the broadest possible reach for all readers of Wikipedia, or not? Peter Damian (talk) 16:00, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
You are basing your arguments on a false pretext, since noone has ever suggested putting forth a policy that favours "badly photographed vaginas" over articles created by banned users. Your grievances about deletion of articles belongs on en-Wiki and has nothing to do with the sexual content image policy on Commons. --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Extreme views? When 1/4 of the world's population in China and 1/4 in the Islamic world want a complete ban on pornography while I am asking only for age requirements and proof that the person has the right to distribute the image, I don't know how you can legitimately call my views "extreme". It would be very incivil to do so, and hypocritical as it would seem that you hold a minority view in the world in that you aren't going for even the basic of steps towards protecting individual's rights. P.S. are you honestly trying to claim that China didn't ban the porn sites? Why else would you try to smear the source like that? You accuse me of bias and impropriey and start off like that why? Ottava Rima (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, Baidu Baike, a Chinese wiki encyclopedia project sanctioned by the Chinese government and not blocked in China, does include explicit sexual diagrams and suggestive photographs; see their articles on penis, vagina, sexual intercourse. I readily agree with Ottava's conclusion that Americans are not really more uptight about sexuality than other countries; in reality, different cultures differ radically in the type of sexual images they consider acceptable and no clear comparison can be made. However, I believe it is far better for us to be blocked to half the world's population than to limit our educational content in any fashion - eventually, the enormous value of WMF projects as a resource will overpower cultural concerns about a minority of content. Dcoetzee (talk) 16:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Where are the 1000 white penises? I don't see them in your link. I also don't see any -real- photos, only illustrations. No one said illustrations would be a problem, especially when they are done medically, have cross sections, and clear labels. I'm a little bothered that you would act like what those links have is somehow similar to th explicit images that Commons has. It makes me wonder if your above post is merely a joke. This is the most graphic of the Chinese images, and if Commons had that as the most graphic we wouldn't have any pornography concerns. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:00, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Besides your obvious joking about the Chinese images which is obviously distasteful, this quote is concerning: "However, I believe it is far better for us to be blocked to half the world's population than to limit our educational content in any fashion". So, 50% of the world receiving no educational content is necessary so a few people can get pornogaphic images? That doesn't make any sense at all. Why should those who edit History, Literature, etc, pages, be punished by having their audience diminished because some people are unable to tolerate not having their sex pics up for everyone to see? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
How about this one? Took me 1 click further to reach. I assume there are more but my chinese is pretty much non existing. Totally unrelated, they really don't care much about copyright there do they? And what "obvious distasteful joke" did Dcoetzee made? I must have missed it completely. Garion96(talk)17:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Only another 999 more for you to find then. Yes there is porn on Chinese websites, Tiawan TV I'm informed has channel upon channel of the stuff. Quite a bit in HK too, and they'll not be totally ignorant of Japan. You'll need to show that its freely available on websites aimed at school kids though. John lilburne (talk) 17:53, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Point was that porn from places near to Mainland China is not unknown it leaks out into a number of places. In any case whether you can find unfiltered porn on baidu is not the point. I can find unfiltered porn on flickr where it is also supposed to not exist. The relevant question is whether you can find CBT images catalogued, categorized, unfiltered, discussed and worshipped in any mainstream Chinese website. John lilburne (talk) 19:29, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I was not joking. And I think it makes a lot of sense. We produce a free resource that anyone is free to modify for their individual needs, e.g. Baidu already borrows and alters a great deal of Wikipedia's content wholesale. Client-side filtering is also an acceptable solution. We do not need to reduce our project's quality to do other people's access control for them. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Ottava Rima claims that "1/4 of the world's population in China and 1/4 in the Islamic world want a complete ban on pornography" when what he means is that half the world's population are governed by regimes which have banned pornography. Conversely, can we therefore state that "all American citizens want to see pornography (as defined and permitted by US law)? He also, bizarrely, points out that "China has blocked Facebook and other groups". So is the argument that we should follow suit? China and other countries have also banned Wikipedia (they have also banned or limited democracy!), so I guess it's time we banned ourselves as well and take the whole Wikimedia project offline. Anatiomaros (talk) 21:37, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The WMF is bound by Florida and US law. All American citizens are not allowed to see pornography: it is banned to those under 18. As such, we are violating US law by not requiring an opt-in to see the material. It doesn't seem like we are following anyone's laws, which is a major problem. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, there is. All sites are required to put forth measures to ensure those under 18 do not have access to pornography, even if it is just a "safe search" opt-in system. Please do not make claims that are untrue. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
This is a common myth. There is no such law in the United States. Websites are not required (or able in practice) to restrict content based on the age of the viewer. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Dcoetzee, US Federal Law makes it a crime to show pornography to minors. A father in Minnesota was arrested for showing his daughters sexual material. People have been charged over such, and distributing pornographic materials to those under 18 is illegal in Florida. WMF is a host site and thus a distributor. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
"that anyone is free to modify for their individual needs" Anyone implies 100% of the world, not 50% that can't because of problematic pushing of fringe values by a small minority. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Is that our problem? If some guys (the political water head) are forcing a ban of such images and services like flickr, icq, skype, etc. than this is their own problem - not ours. Let the people decide and not some brainless creatures that are forcing stupid laws onto them. --Niabot (talk) 00:04, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, its our problem. The WMF has a lot of people in other countries. You cannot sacrifice half the world because of your own minority view. That is called being selfish. I am glad that Wing is now the top person as he has insight into why cultures like the Chinese need to be respected instead of dismissed and treated like they don't matter. This European Imperialist mentality is not good for anyone. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with european imperialism. It's just about freedom of expression and opinion. A right that every human should have. If we start to censor Wikipedia or Commons because we fear to get blocked, we are not any better then any dictator and/or oppressor. In the case that WP gets blocked, that is not our fault, and we are not the ones to blame, because we are not the ones that are limiting the freedom and rights of humans. --Niabot (talk) 20:55, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Freedom of expression? Why is it that the Germans are the ones pushing for the porn but also banned using the names of murderers on Wiki because of German law? Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber ring a bell? Selective claims about censorship are inappropriate. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I happen to think that the notion of being banned in the UK is pure fantasy, and that while we are liable to be banned in China, a perception of pornographic content would be pretty low on the list of reasons. I strongly disagree with any suggestion that WMF should tailor its contents to even actual and specific threats by the Chinese government: do we really want to give China the de facto power to censor our site through threats of bans? - Jmabel ! talk02:07, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
If China chooses to permanently ban Wikimedia sites, their content is still free. Any Chinese entrepreneur with the obligatory government contacts should be able to devise a "selective mirror" that cuts out enough of the stuff they don't like to be allowed in their country. And having such a friendly relationship with the government, they would probably need to cut far less than Wikipedia would need to... But of course, I'd like to think that China would see that the merits of allowing their billion citizens to interact directly with Wikipedia to document things relevant to their daily lives, including e.g. tourist attractions and Chinese medicines that should bring much revenue to their country, well outweighs the occasional inconvenient fact or photo. Wnt (talk) 05:48, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
So, Chinese users shouldn't be allowed to use us and must be kept to their own mirrors? That is rather offensive, you know. What if we instead said that those who support the porn should be banned and kept to their own mirror? That way, we would have the many more Chinese users. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
I didn't say that Chinese users were banned from anything. But if their government says it, there are limits to what I can do about it. What I can do is contribute to a project that makes its text available under common free licenses. But in truth as I understand it China hasn't been exceptionally harsh toward Wikipedia and related projects, all things considered - after all, we continue to print what are pretty much propaganda statements about huge estimates of fatalities in the w:Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 taken from anonymous sources and Western intelligence agencies, but so far as I understand they haven't banned access consistently or all that effectively. We're really not making efforts to be conciliatory in any way, even on the issues that would rile them the most, but the resource is just too valuable for them to give up. I don't see why "porn" would be any different, especially when it would be so easy for them to block just the images they objected to, if they thought it was worth bothering. (And why should it be - there's porn all over the internet...) Wnt (talk) 06:09, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
There aren't limits to what we can do about it - the porn serves no true purpose and we can survive without it. I don't need pornographic material for any of my pages. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Obviously, porn is useful for illustrating articles concerning pornographic topics (such as pornography and its history, pornographic actors, etc.). You may not edit these articles, but other people do. Dcoetzee (talk) 16:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Useful does not mean necessary. It would be useful to have President Obama's recent biography on Wikisource but copyright concerns prevent that. We are able to have Wikisource without the work. Pornographic topics aren't necessary. They aren't in Britannica nor are they taught in highschools. Other people edit Pokemon articles, but we expelled the majority of them to Bulbapedia. I don't see any convincing argument in your statements, but a lot of arguments that have been defeated in the past. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Ottava Rima it is clear from your various posts, that circumstances have caused you to have extreme views, and you will go to any length to try to warn us of the dangers you perceive. Please take a step back, and understand that others do see different ways forward- have different limits. You would be wise to consider Dcoetzee views- his world extends beyond the limitations of the US National Curriculum, and beyond the needs of the 16 year old. Please take a step back. Commons accommodates all of us. ---ClemRutter (talk) 20:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Pornographic topics are an essential part of the human experience and must be included in any complete encyclopedia. If you disagree, I invite you to head over to En and nominate en:pornography for deletion. That would be entertaining. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
(ec) That is your personal opinion. "I find it unnecessary to write about aristocracy. We should ban it and all it's pictures." I got never taught about aristocracy in school. At least not in such detail. Is it necessary? But in school we got thought about pornography. Not only pornography of course. But as you should be able to see. Many topics aren't made for everyone, but are in the interests of others. I often heard that the pornographic articles are read by children, and that it is bad. But on the other side we help also adults to guide their kids. Providing them with a source of knowledge in a way that they can answer the questions of curious children without telling them about "flowers and bees".
Limiting Wikipedia and it's projects to the most common can't be the goal. The world lives from diversity and we should have them too. --Niabot (talk) 20:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
You were not taught about the aristocracy so you never had a course on history? But your school taught pornography? Sorry, but that seems like bs. And you can teach about sexuality without needing pornography, just as medical text books have diagrams that are not explicit. By the way, how is w:Snowballing (sexual practice) necessary for children to know? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
"Pornographic topics are an essential part of the human experience" Lolwut? Seriously, what? Britannica didn't think so. No secondary school system thinks so. Looking at universities, only a minority have any courses on pornography and even fewer on looking at it. And 1000 white penises is educational how? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
"that circumstances have caused you to have extreme views" Um, what? I already pointed out that 50% of the world outright bans porn. If anything, you are the one with extreme views. And this: "beyond the needs of the 16 year old". So, you think that 50% of the world and children have no right to Wikipedia because they are not as libertine as you? You are pushing an absurd, uneducational fringe agenda that is both ageist and racist, and you call me extreme? Wow, just wow. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I didn't say that i wasn't thought about aristocracy. But the amount of time spend on this topic equals up to sexuality/pornography, which is part of art, ethics, biology and philosophy school subjects. It's also part of our culture since ancient times. Ignoring this topics would mean to ignore a large part of human history. You will even confronted with such practices in historic writings. May it be letters from Cesar...
You asked why we should have images of "1000 white penises". This is quite simple. There is not one unique penis or one ideal. On the other hand, we don't have 1000 white penises and this is pure exaggeration by you.
You pointed out that 50% of the world bans porn. But you have given no source for this claim. Even if 50% of all countries would ban porn by law, that would say nothing about the people. But what is easily provable is, that most of the countries that are banning porn are dictatorships. Somehow this can't be some coincidence. Maybe it has something to do with some basic human rights - like freedom or expression and speech. Just give it a thought.
The last words you have written are nonsense. We aren't blocking them, we say: "Look at what you want to look, but take the responsibility, which is the price of freedom". If you don't get this, then we don't need to talk any further. --Niabot (talk) 17:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I wonder if you know what the word "pornography" means. It is not taught as part of "art, ethics, biology and philosophy school subjects" and it isn't taught at all in secondary schools. Then you make absurd statements like this: "There is not one unique penis or one ideal." So we need to have every single penis? That is clearly in the what Commons is not. And I already provided a source for 50% of the world banning porn - Islamic nations are 1.5 billion people and China is 1.5 billion people, which is 50% of the world. And pornography is not a basic human right. Don't be absurd. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:38, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Nevermind, it is clear from your user page and uploads that you are beholden to a fringe view and are not objective in this. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I missed one thing: "On the other hand, we don't have 1000 white penises and this is pure exaggeration by you." Nope. The sexual content study said that it was problematic that we had 1000 white penises and lacked those of others, defeating any claims that they were uploaded for "educational purposes". It verifies that most of the porn is uploaded for either exhibitionist purposes or for self-enjoyment and not for educational purposes. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:44, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
So (a) you want to make sure that people who are pictured don't mind them being uploaded and (b) you object to uploads because they're by and of people who have no objection to naked pictures of themselves online? We have much better coverage of Massachusetts than Zimbabwe; does that mean that we aren't uploading for educational purposes, or rather that we're uploading what we have access to? And part of the reason we only have white penises is because of we have not made a friendly place for people to upload their nude and sexual materials; turns out putting every image uploaded up for DR and accusing the uploaders of uploading because they're exhibitionists is not a good way to encourage people to contribute.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:28, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
"porn is not encyclopedic", "Britannica don't have such images"... i have a en:Déjà vu. Here 15 dic 201013 dic 2010/113 dic 2010/2 I and others show with objective facts (link to porn and sex paper encyclopedias and essays about sex and the world that exist around the porn industry) that the first is simple false, and with the first pillar and explicit examples that the second is incorrect because we (as a "general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers"+news source+repository for free books+....all the wikimedia projects) cover a number of topic and needs much larger that the ones of a simple general encyclopedia like Brittannica. Repeating the same false and incorrect statements every three weeks, does not make them true and correct....--Yoggysot (talk) 03:16, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Britannica is not a porn encyclopedia. Were you not here when those same tired arguments were used to justify having every Pokemon character and they were removed? Wikia and the rest are for individual and specialists encyclopedias. Furthermore, the works you cite are by illegitimate publishers. Not one is an academic press. They wouldn't stand up under reliable sources and you know it. Porn is unnecessary and the only ones who are pushing it either push for all lawlessness in general or are involved with the porn. That is rather problematic, especially when they try to force their minority view on the majority with dangerous consequences. By the way, Britannica is a legitimate encyclopedia. I guess you don't care about Wikipedia becoming legitimate. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Quote: "Furthermore, the works you cite are by illegitimate publishers. Not one is an academic press. They wouldn't stand up under reliable sources and you know it."
Numerous academic books and articles on pornography and erotica have been published over the years. E.g. this with the rather appropriate comment "Williams and her contributors have . . . made it possible for intelligent people to discuss porn". Or how about this: Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford University Press) (well illustrated!). Serious books - for, against, neutral - exploring every aspect of the subject, published by academic publishers or respected publishing houses. It's a fundamental part of human history, society and behaviour. And I'm afraid that your assertion that "the only ones who are pushing it (pornography) either push for all lawlessness in general or are involved with the porn" is quite outrageous as it seems you are placing all those who are against censorship here in that category. Anatiomaros (talk) 21:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
About the "academic press" thing, there aren't any policies that says that a non-academic press source is a not reliable source.
And if you see the books that i give as examples in my post of 15 dicember you can found Storia della fotografia pornografica, published by Mondadori Bruno [4], that is one of the biggest italian publisher of textbooks (from Elementary school to University), and the description of the book (if you can't read italian) says "In this book the author traces the history of pornographic photographs, featuring hundreds of photos and comparing them with images, drawings, prints and old paintings". So accademic publisher can produce a book about pornografy with "hundreds" of porn photos (probably more than we currently host in Commons).
I have a kinda feeling that chat here is sort of meandering without necessarily moving things forward all that much? - Perhaps we should setup some sort of archiving, or something, where threads without comment for a day or two, or a week, pop into an archive. I'll do this manually at the start of next week... new year, new start, 'n all that. Privatemusings (talk) 04:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I think bot archiving after a week with no comments would be acceptable. Far better than doing it manually - we have enough arguments here as it is! Anatiomaros (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
proposal
I've removed the proposal which we're not really empowered to enact, and shuffled the small proposal to the top. It's previously been asserted by Alec (I think) that this proposal represents common ground - that consent from all parties should be present in the case of sexual content. Whaddya reckon? Privatemusings (talk) 04:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Seems like a foot-in-the-door technique. Either pass something meaningful in it of itself, or just make it a summary of existing policy. --AerobicFox (talk) 06:44, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
it's more an attempt to gently find some common ground :-) - I think requiring at least the assertion of consent would be pretty meaningful though - if you think about it, wouldn't you agree? Privatemusings (talk) 08:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Commons:Photographs of identifiable people seems to be the place for this. I support AerobicFox in this. Putting this in place would just open another door for users with extreme views to disrupt Commons. Common ground cannot be achieved when one party passionate believes no one else really understands. The problem is not that assertion of consent would be meaningful- it is that every image that lacks it is open to retrospective attack. --ClemRutter (talk) 10:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Where is this mysterious rule that policies can't overlap? It would seem that every other policy does. Did you have no legitimate argument against what Privatemusings intended? And why would you not want every old image to be up for review? That was the case when it came to copyright changes. Are you saying that we should keep illegitimate and possibly illegal images merely because they are old? I'm confused as to how you think the images are irreplaceable. None of it adds up. Your argument amounts to "because I say so". Please provide some substance and an rational that is legitimate according to already existing policy and function.Ottava Rima (talk) 19:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I have little hope of getting anything about sexuality approved as policy, as the main argument against the proposal was "instruction creep". But I think it is good to try to get some common ground for a next round, sometime in a more distant future, and as advice for those who want to have it.
The consent issue is an important one, but I think the current wording is problematic:
"the subjects of photographs consented to the release of these images under terms compatible with the license"
I think the subjects should not have to give up {{Personality rights}}. Why with these images when it is not demanded otherwise? I understand that consent for use for which you need explicit consent is more valuable for these images than for images of somebody having picnic in a park, and thus we could recommend such additional permission, but I do not understand why we should delete images that are perfectly OK with existing policies.
Neither do I understand why "illegal [...] because they contain individuals under the age of majority" is relevant. If it is not child porn, why would it be illegal?
The issue of consent is necessary for the CC-by-SA licenses. Why? Because anyone can alter the image, including uploading a version with a cartoon penis in, say, Jimbo's mouth. Since this applies to all images, you would need the license to allow it and ensure full protection when it comes to alterations. Otherwise, it would have to be uploaded locally. Also, in many countries those under 18 can't legally consent to things that are issued under commercial purposes, so you would need parental or guardian consent, especially when nudity is concerned. The license requires commercial use allowed. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I think you are getting there slowly, the problem isn't really with images, the problem is with the free license.
Example: The Orkut Fake accounts. These accounts on the Orkut social network site were created by teens to late twenty, with family pictures of 5 to 10 yo that had been taken from flickr accounts. In the account users then pretended to be the kids in the pictures, so it was "Hello my name is Sally. I am 6, I have a brother he is 8. My mummy takes us to the playground." and so on. Unfortunately the chatter eventually moved on late teen to late twenty subjects of drinking, drugs, clubbing, and sex. Then the parents of the kids in the photos found out and went apeshite over it.
The Google response was to ask the parents to supply a photocopy of the 8 year old's driving license or something similar. It wasn't until the lawyers got involved and the DMCA takedowns started arriving in bulk that Google actually did anything about it. Most of it was harmless, but the parents of the kids who were used got rather upset about it.
When you give a photo with a CC-BY-SA license you allow any reuse, that is fine as far as you the photographer is concerned, but not so good for the subject. The kid in the Virgin Media ad most likely didn't want to shown across Australia as a dork. A CC-BY-SA image of a person really should have been cleared by the subject that they are also fine with however it subsequently gets used. John lilburne (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Just remember that personal rights and the license are two different things. Even if images of persons are under a free license you have to respect other laws that can limit the reuse for any case. For example a statue placed inside the public can be photographed in germany, but you don't have the right to modify the image in a way that you infringe with the rights of the creator. --Niabot (talk) 00:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
But I can modify it when I get back to the UK. What happens with inanimate objects is one thing, one could take the photo of the two kids on this page and put it on a 'childlove' website hosted in the US. Images of people are problematic when given a BY-SA license because the person depicted really ought to have a say in whether they are OK with any and all uses that an image could be put to. On flickr the other week I reported an account that had a set of favourites laid out in such a way that one picture would have a guy's erect penis pointing to the right and the picture beside it had a young girl or boy with its mouth open or tongue out. There were other combinations too where the juxtaposition implied that the child was an active participant or observer in the previous or preceding sex act. John lilburne (talk) 01:54, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Are there no pesonality rights laws in the UK or USA?
This is an issue that is not at all restricted to sexual content, as any portrait can be cut and pasted into a pornographic image. If such things cannot be handled by local personality right laws, then we have to either leave it at that or stop having any images of identifiable living or recently deceased persons.
But probably the honour of a person is protected in any decent jurisdiction. Which means the issue should be under control.
Except when it comes to advertising there are very few personality rights in the US. I could use a CC-BY-SA photo of your sister walking in the park to illustrate an article on genital warts, or an incest themed story.
So long as someone isn't a notable person in Australia I can use a CC-BY-SA photo of them to advertise anything from cell phones to condoms in Australia. Some people may be OK with that, others not.
Depending on your use you just have to shop around for the appropriate jurisdiction for the web host. You probably wouldn't want to do any of the above on servers located in Germany, or France. John lilburne (talk) 11:50, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Or Finland. I am astonished. Are there now laws on defamation? Could you really take a photo of anybody in the street, put the face on a nude body and use that in a condom advertisement? And the person depicted couldn't do anything about it? --LPfi (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2011 (UTC) (I understand you could do it by putting the servers in Afganistan, but If you do use the same jurisdiction.)
OK say I use a photo of your next door neighbour to advertise in Australia. Your neighbour is unknown in Australia and therefore their reputation is not harmed by appearing in the advert. Here is the Chang case where a Texas court found that it had no jurisdiction wrt to an image used in Australia. As far as Australia itself is concerned here is an opinion by a licensed OZ lawyer, and this is a law site. Now depending on how far out you go with the use you may get hit for defamation in OZ. So you might be better off doing that sort of thing in the US. Of course bring such a case in a foreign jurisdiction might be a little hard for the normal plaintiff. John lilburne (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
John, where do you get "when it comes to advertising there are very few personality rights in the US"? There have certainly been successful lawsuits over misappropriation of someone's image in this context, and as far as I know, advertisers are usually more careful than anyone else in the US about having model releases. I'm not expert on this, but just wondering where your information comes from, because it is opposite to my impression. - Jmabel ! talk17:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Ah, I misread you. I didn't see "except" as modifying, "when it comes to advertising". I sort of mentally put a comma after the "except", thinking of it as referring to the previous comment rather than the following clause. - Jmabel ! talk01:34, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Concern trolls looking for the edge of acceptable
After reading this page, it feels to me that there are a bunch of concern trolls and related creeps who are trying to find the edge of what is acceptable at commons. I think that allowing those discussions to fester slowly but surely will erode the standards here. Sexual content of consenting adults is one thing, child pron is definitely not. With child porn or anything to close to that, there should not be any discussion about whether it is appropriate. No, those images should be speedy deleted, and the uploader blocked. KimvdLinde (talk) 03:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that many images of child nudity (which is accepted at Commons) might be treated as child pornography, especially in the grey area of "suggestive" works. Some of these are significant historical works, while others are simulated or non-photographic works (which are produced without exploitation and so governed by different laws). Although I favour quick action in clear cases, it's not always so clear. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Sure, every picture of a child can be mutilated to be pornography. But everybody who has a healthy sexuality will know the difference between porn and a child playing. And if in doubt, delete it. This is not an area you take risks. KimvdLinde (talk) 14:10, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Ridiculous. In the United States, at least, no subject consent is needed for most reasonable use of images taken in public places. Period. On the other hand, disgusting crap like what you did under your previous account - which was blocked, and I take it that you have created a new account to evade that block - rides the limits of legality (I don't know which side it falls on, and frankly wouldn't mind seeing you prosecuted for it), certainly violates moral rights and could have had you sued under civil law, and certainly falls outside of Commons scope. - Jmabel ! talk16:40, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Could you point out where subject consent is required for 'unreasonable' uses, and the definition of 'unreasonable'? Any US case history would be fine. John lilburne (talk) 18:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
John, I don't have specific citation. I don't know if you saw the image in question, but it was a montage of an innocuous but identifiable picture of a young girl flanked by two symmetrically placed, proportionately enormous, erect adult penises. I suspect that the image was (just barely) legal in terms of child pornography laws (though it wouldn't astound me if a court found otherwise), and I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty confident that the parents or guardians of that child would have had an extremely solid civil case quite independent of the fact that they could not bring it on grounds of copyright violation. Defamation of character, perhaps, or something along those lines. Certainly if I were the parent of a child and someone used an image of my child similarly, and I believed that the image had been publicly released, I would be looking into my legal options. - Jmabel ! talk05:17, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
So I gathered, but it gets a lot worse. There are sites where a photo of a person is posted and where others ejaculate over it, and repost a photo of the result. Do you want links? In some cases they'll post photos of ex-girlfriends or wives, as revenge. Or they'll pick out some random photo from the internet. Some times its done to photos of kids too.
Also there are those that use CC-BY photos in order to mock the person depicted. These are specific problems with the free licenses when applied to the subjects. Whereas traditionally the photographer had some control over the reuse, with the free license the fate of reuse is handed over to fortune. Something that many users of the license, particularly on networks like flickr do not appreciate.
Regarding the specific image that was deleted. Often freely licensed photos will be used in that way. Don't be surprised about a montage from the photos in the nude kids category. Or if a photo is converted it into a drawing and then manipulated further. Some of them take the old masters images of nude kids and photoshop on the faces of other kids. John lilburne (talk) 11:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
This is not a problem with the free licences as you have described, but rather it's a poor attempt of scare-mongering. Good try, but the fact that free licences allow all uses including illegal ones is the strong point of free licences. Beta M (talk) 14:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Anybody who tries to suggest that free licenses are the problem has no clue about reality. If someone wants to make something bordering child pornography, they can take ANY image in the world, mutilate the image and post if somewhere in a country with different laws, or send it around to their pedophile buddies. And that happens all the time. Most child porn images never reach the public realm. The people that will try to stay within the free license are those who want to make a point. KimvdLinde (talk) 16:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
To add. Eliminating free licenses is not going to change anything for the positive because people who want to make images like this are going to make them, regardless of the license. This group of people is a tiny minority. However, it does a lot of harm to the huge majority, because it limits them. Every time a group of people proposes to eliminate the options of a large majority because of concerns that a tiny minority of perverts will make misuse of something, you are loosing far more important things than the effective zero positive effect you will have on the issue. Fighting child porn is far better served by enabling law enforcement to do their job, and to help law enforcement when they come across someone or something that is unacceptable. The main problem is not a free license image, it is that most people will ignore it when they come across it. KimvdLinde (talk) 16:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes someone could take a non-free image and do the same, many do. The difference is that with the non-free image a copyright claim will remove the offending article very quickly from most websites. The Orkut fake accounts weren't dealt with by Google because the parents complained about impersonation, or sexual age play around the images, they were dealt with by the parents making copyright claims. A copyright claim will often work across national borders and get the offending material removed faster, than by the subject of the photograph complaining about damage to reputation, inappropriateness or any other tort. Some subjects may not mind whatever is done with their image but they ought to be given the option to express that opinion. John lilburne (talk) 01:34, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Most websites will remove offending images regardless. We did here. And most offending images are not posted at places where they have such a sound policy. So you make a big deal of a limited number of images posted at websites that generally will remove them anyway. The discussion here could very well have been to find out what those limits were so they could use this website for the future. KimvdLinde (talk) 03:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Buzzzt NO. Many will assert, as people in this thread are doing, that the photo was taken in public, and freely licensed. The subject has lost any and all control over the image. They are unable to take action against the original photographer as they aren't responsible for the reuse, the photographer is unable to assert copyright to get the use taken down, and the re-user is often anonymous. This is a particular problem with the free-license as it affects the subject in a photo. John lilburne (talk) 12:59, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Copyright is frequently the first thing people turn to because it happens to be available, but the purpose of copyright is to encourage the production of creative works. Using it to protect a brand, to discourage misuse of a person's likeness, or discourage the creation of derived works that the public find objectionable, is not its purpose and is best served by other laws. Assigning secondary purposes to copyright will only accelerate its destructive expansion. Dcoetzee (talk) 05:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Copyright also ensures that a creative work is not abused. That the creator has control over how the work is used and the context of the use. So for example a photographer of beetles may license a photo for wildlife magazines, but not for a pesticide company. A child photographer may license photos for Gap Kids, but not for NAMBLA etc. So copyright is often turned to because it is the quickest way to stop an abusive online use, frequently people aren't concerned about the monetary value of licensing the work, they simply want that particular reuse to stop. John lilburne (talk) 13:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Copyright is used in that manner, but that is not its intended purpose nor should it be. Its purpose is to enable the author to commercialize their work and make a living, not to protect from use that the author dislikes. This is largely a philosophical difference that depends on how strongly you think authors deserve to "own" their own creations (my viewpoint is that creative works belong to the world, not to any person). Dcoetzee (talk) 03:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
You are completely missing my point. It is not a misuse of any free licence to create a derived work that the original creator disagrees with for moral, ethical, spiritual, religious, political, or whatever other reasons. In fact that is a strong point of free licences, not only do they not discourage such "misuse", but they are designed exactly for that and encourage it. But once again we have a discussion which got completely derailed, as this has nothing to do with sexual content on commons, but rather some poor attempt at trolling. Beta M (talk) 06:22, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I just read that account, and it is very disturbing. Child porn is usually invoked as an excuse to introduce some broad category of censorship that could not be introduced any other way, and this is no exception. The now-closed admin discussion accepted hook, line, and sinker a claim that Creative Commons 3.0 prohibits parodies. This was based on the following:
"Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law, if You Reproduce, Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work either by itself or as part of any Adaptations or Collections, You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation. Licensor agrees that in those jurisdictions (e.g. Japan), in which any exercise of the right granted in Section 3(b) of this License (the right to make Adaptations) would be deemed to be a distortion, mutilation, modification or other derogatory action prejudicial to the Original Author's honor and reputation, the Licensor will waive or not assert, as appropriate, this Section, to the fullest extent permitted by the applicable national law, to enable You to reasonably exercise Your right under Section 3(b) of this License (right to make Adaptations) but not otherwise."[5]
Now I would say that a decent reading of this should take this to mean that any attributed modification of a photo is permitted, as an exercise of 3(b). But I'm worried about how the word "any" is prone to misinterpretation - specifically, if someone tries to say that it means that only if there isn't one single possible way to adapt a photo, can you parody a photo. I hope that is just an unsubstantiated fear on my part, because otherwise, all of Commons is screwed for comedic purposes. Then again, I know in my heart that this all is only a tactic, and nothing short of the final end of copyright and the recognition of universal freedom of speech can ever be enough.
In any case, the Commons admins were shown a quote only of the sentence about "distort" and not the caveats, and now they probably think that CC gives them carte blanche to delete any potentially offensive parody they run across. Wnt (talk) 19:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Regarding the general conversation here, I would say that any photo that pushes the limit of censorship will seem shocking, but it doesn't mean it is shocking in some absolute sense. As soon as the censorship is defeated, it becomes normal. The role of Commons is to promote free expression, part of which involves the shocking and bizarre. Once people get over their conditioned aversion to images they have been told are bad, they'll realize that it's just some silly photo-alteration game and not think anything of them. Wnt (talk) 20:02, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Sexual content is intrinsically identifiable
The new section "Proposal: Sexual content is intrinsically identifiable". I contest that there is anything intrinsically identifiable about most of our anonymous sexual content. It would be easily justifiable if the photo featured a recognisable tattoo, or distinctive feature, but most photos that fall under this categorical would be incredibly difficult to ever tie back to someone. Also, why would sexual content be "intrinsically identifiable", but non sexual content not be? Every ear is just as unique as every penis, actually more so(Google ear prints). Should Category:Human ears be considered intrinsically identifiable, and what about category thumb? --AerobicFox (talk) 22:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I have tagged it and the previous section with a {{Fact}} tag. Memory is not my strong point- but I can remember that the only consensus achieved was that there was no agreement. Lets achieve agreement before we make a proposal that purports to one having being achieved.--ClemRutter (talk) 01:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
I've been far too busy helping the people of Tunisia in their struggle for democracy lately to have had time to spare for Commons so I've only just seen this. Have to agree with the above. This seems like yet another attempt to make Commons free of sexual images by making it almost impossible to meet the conditions that would be imposed. It's just somebody's proposal so I see no reason for including it on the policy/guideline/whatever page. Anatiomaros (talk) 00:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
I wrote up those sections as "proposals" in recognition that they were controversial ideas. They were not meant to be statements of fact, but a recap of what had been under consideration in the previous vote; I didn't even mean to support them. Sorry if this confused anyone. Oh, and how do you help the people of Tunisia seek democracy? Wnt (talk) 19:33, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Oppose strongly, as factually untruthful, the original statement/postulate of this discussion, that "Sexual content is intrinsically identifiable"
obviously not literally true & politically "loaded"; a cheap rationale for a censorship "crackdown" on "dirty pictures"
also IF such images are "intrinsically identifiable, THEN the same standard would have to be applied to ALL our anatomy photographs...
Oppose The defense that sexual content is identifiable is utterly ridiculous. Most images of people's faces anywhere are identifiable. But I see many images on Commons that are just naked people, one after another, and it's too many. Maybe the posters need to be directly questioned, because some see Commons as a porn or art repository. It's not. The amount of all pictures on Commons has to only be the reasonable amount needed for use on the other projects, and perhaps a few more. With porn and sexuality and nudity, I don't see that. I do oppose the disproportionally large amount of pornographic images on Commons, but this is the wrong way to do it.--RayquazaDialgaWeird2210 (talk) 23:56, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Agree, the claim that sexual content is intrinsically identifiable is quite suspect, see for example this image. Even if I knew the women in this photo, I doubt I could say with any certainty that "that is them" unless I had already seen them naked before. Perhaps a forensic scientist could identify them, given enough data, but the same is true of nearly all images of humans. This is a very weak argument and I hope it won't be listed among our final motivations if we ever agree on a policy. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:14, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Comment This talk page is about sexual content. It's interesting to see that people continue to assimilate nudity and sexuality or pornography on one hand and underage nudity and pedophilia on the other hand. I'm tired about this kind of simplistic amalgams. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 10:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Oppose strongly, as factually untruthful, the original statement/postulate of this discussion, that "Sexual content is intrinsically identifiable".jpg){kind=link}