I should add that if folk are interested in the english wikipedia, and have any ideas / comments etc. in this area, I kicked this off here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Child_Protection cheers, Peter, PM. On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Brian J Mingus <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu>wrote;wrote: _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

2009/11/16 private musings <thepmaccount(a)gmail.com>om>: have Already been addressed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Youth_protection In practice defacto policy is that we remove personal information posted by younger users. -- geni _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote: > Hi all, > On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects, > self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved > in > routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably > describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg'). > http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358&st=0&p=204846&… > 46 > I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see > better > governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we > need to > talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're > overdue. > I'd really like to see the advisory board take a look at this issue > - is > there a formal way of suggesting or requesting their thoughts, or > could I > just ask here for a board member or community member with the advisory > board's ear to raise this with them.

You just won't give up this topic, will you? I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance. I'm also unsure how you propose to define "sexually explicit". The definitions under law are elaborate, attempting to make distinctions that would be irrelevant to any negative impact on children, if one existed. Are images of the statue of David, the Mannekin Pis or the Ecstacy of Theresa deserving of such restrictions? What about the detailed frescoes of sexual acts displayed in brothels and living rooms in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum? How are those distinct from the image you've used as an example, and how is that distinction relevant to whatever supposed harm you are claiming to children? If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on such images, then those children should be supervised in their internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate. It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one. -- Andrew Garrett

Even though I do agree to some extent with you, Andrew, I would like to make a remark. You correctly state that the cultural sensibilities differ over the world on this topic. However, this does not excuse for calling the sensibilities "irrational" and "lacking in substance" (inconsistent is fair enough). Clearly, you belong to the group of people who do not have a problem at all with these images, and PM belongs to the group of people that has huge problems with them. The mere fact that you two disagree should not lead to the conclusion we should not think about a way of taking away the problem for the people in side of the spectrum where PM is located. I think you could lay a comparison between people having significant problems with these images and therefore are not able (or less able) to access Wikipedia with people who have technical issues because they do not want to download a piece of propitiatory software. We care a lot about the latter group, why abolish even the idea of caring about the first? Because we do not belong to it? Some people do indeed think that ancient pornography should be hidden as well by the way, although I do get your point. Sometimes there is clearly an educational purpuse involved, and the images add value. Now let it be clear I do not vouch at all for getting rid of the images, or any free content. However, if that would suit a significant group of people, we could consider to make them a little less prominently accessible. Please speak up if the following procedure would make no sense at all to you: 0) think about whether we want (if it exists) to help reduce this group of people with siginificant problems in the first place. 1) research / find research on how large the group of people is that have significant problems with this issue (I define significant here as "having the impact that because of this, they will visit Wikipedia less frequently or not at all") 2) consider which approaches would be possible 3) research which of these approached would be help to decrease the group of people having significant problems with this issue 4) consider whether this has any negative impact for the people not having these significant problems 5) balance these advantages/disadvantages lets not jump to 5) immediately. To get to the original question of PM, I am not sure actually whether the advisory board would have people on it who would be helpful on this specific topic. Angela, could you advise on this? Perhaps this topic could, however, better be approached through the often named Strategy Process. Philippe, do you have a suggestion how this can be incorporated? Thanks, Lodewijk 2009/11/17 Andrew Garrett <agarrett(a)wikimedia.org>rg>: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358&st=0&p=204846&… _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358&st=0&p=204846&… You just won't give up this topic, will you? I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance. I'm also unsure how you propose to define "sexually explicit". The definitions under law are elaborate, attempting to make distinctions that would be irrelevant to any negative impact on children, if one existed. Are images of the statue of David, the Mannekin Pis or the Ecstacy of Theresa deserving of such restrictions? What about the detailed frescoes of sexual acts displayed in brothels and living rooms in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum? How are those distinct from the image you've used as an example, and how is that distinction relevant to whatever supposed harm you are claiming to children? If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on such images, then those children should be supervised in their internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate. It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one. -- Andrew Garrett agarrett(a)wikimedia.org http://werdn.us/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Andrew Garrett wrote: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358&st=0&p=204846&… I agree that a common sense approach is warranted. In large measure applying complex controls on child viewing is totally unrealistic. We would begin with the problem of defining what is too young. In an other topic, underage drinking, it is relatively far easier to define the offending act but the age at which drinking is permitted still varies widely from one jurisdiction to another. So what age is appropriate for viewing such material? 12? 16? 18? 21? And even if we agree on an age, except for the few self-identified individuals how are we to know what someone's age really is? Those who are too young very quickly learn that lying is a valuable skill founded upon necessity. Not many years ago in a bible-belt suburb there was a very loud campaign to block books that depicted same sex parents from a school library. There was no question of those parents engaging in sexual activity in the books, only a depiction that they could be loving and committed parents just as much as opposite sex parents. The aim of the books was to combat the development of homophobia among children of "normal" parents. Yes, that is at the other extreme from the raunchy photos that are most often complained about, but that merely illustrates the problem of definition. As is often stated WMF is an ISP, and not a publisher. The more it seeks to control content, the more it acquires characteristics of a publisher. Indeed as an ISP it must respond to specific legal demands to remove certain material, but random complaints are not legal demands. Perhaps at the same time those complainers should be asking why murder is so much more socially acceptable on TV than consensual sex. The responsibility of parents remains paramount ... even if some are incapable of exercising that responsibility. It would also be irresponsible if parents with the means to provide internet access exercised control to the extent of raising internet illiterates incapable of functioning in a wired world. What teachers and other public institutions can do has severe limitations. The sad unavoidable fact is that the seamier side of life exists. A parent does not protect his child by pretending to him that such things don't happen. More is accomplished by directing him toward a mature attitude. Ec _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

As is often stated WMF is an ISP, and not a publisher.

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: The section 230 that would seem to matter here? The WMF has all sorts of roles, depending on who you are, how you look at it, and what your perspective is (and what day of the month it is, etc). Referring to legal issues, one has to remain domain specific when using specific terms in a legal sense.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance.

The Foundation, Commons and the English Wikipedia typically address problems associated with minors by refusing to engage as a group. Some individuals advise children not to put personally identifying information on their userpage, but that is advice haphazardly given and no effort is made to systematically identify situations where it would be useful. That one problem is a microcosm for the whole spectrum of "children" issues throughout Wikimedia - we encourage individual editors to advise other editors when they might be endangering themselves, but we don't allow (and often refuse even to discuss) more proactive solutions. Outstanding problems that have been identified in the past: * Access of minor readers to sexually explicit material * Involvement of minor participants / administrators in the administration of sexually explicit content * Sexually explicit imagery that features or may feature models under the age of 18 Our responses to these problems have never been more sophisticated than "Wikimedia is not censored." Perhaps its assumed that by refusing to budge from this absolute position, we avoid a war by inches where we will ultimately be forced to cave to all cultural sensitivities. Instead of evaluating what our responsibilities should be, what action we ought to take, we limit ourselves only to what we *must* do by law. I think that's a mistake. I'm not sure we can do much about minor readers and participants, except perhaps putting certain types of content behind a warning wall that can be easily bypassed. The types of verification and consent models used in the web industry are formatted on limiting liability, they don't need to be (and consequently are not) very effective. Adopting one of these models may not make sense for Wikimedia, but it certainly makes sense to have a discussion about it. Geni and Andrew's comments strike me as an attempt to foreclose any discussion. On the other hand, we certainly can do more on policing the sexually explicit imagery on Commons against possible violations of child pornography and privacy laws. We may not *have* to do this, but we ought to. There is at least one large category of images, from a specific photographer, where it has long been suspected that some models are underage. The only verification effort we make now is on licensing, but I think we ought to require actual model releases on sexually explicit photographs. We will gain far more by protecting the safety and privacy of image subjects than we stand to lose in the volume of explicit photos. Nathan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

+1. Not sure what I can add to that, other than I agree completely. We have great nuance in our debates about copyright and take consummate care when concerns are raised on that front. But when concerns are raised in other areas (such as this one) we often tend towards extreme positions characterised by a refusal to engage in the issue and simplistic shutdowns. I have no answer or particular axe to grind in this topic but I do think it is worth consideration. Nathan's response has got to be the most well written thing I've seen on Foundatio.nl for a long time. -Liam [[witty lama]] wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l