Question: Are female participants discouraged by the hardcore pornographic or explicit content in certain topics or articles?
Do you find it offensive, degrading, discouraging?
The women I know (other than my mother, whom I have not asked) have answered those questions generally with a "It doesn't bother me" or "I don't care".
If there is either good ancedotal or statistical evidence that women are actually discouraged or driven off by it, then let's by all means address it, both here and elsewhere. But that claim has often been made by a lot of men, who also suspiciously were themselves offended by it, many of whom do themselves in fact object to any explicit imagery without regard to NOTCENSORED, beyond reasonable values of editorial judgement.
I am not going to lump Jimmy or Herostratus into that category, but the vast bulk of energy expended to remove explicit content seems to be done by people for whom the retort that Wikipedia is not censored is, in fact, a completely legitimate and completely adequate response. They in fact make it harder for reasonable editorial judgement types to engage in discussion, as they're not very good at disguising their underlying moral contempt for that material and their fears that it will indelibly contaminate their precious children.
Actual offensiveness to women or discouragement of women contributors are a potentially valid issue, if it can be corroborated.
Thanks.
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
--- On Mon, 14/2/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/User_talk:Herostratus/Hardcor...
He has now asked for mediation.
Although I agree with the position taken in the essay, and, indeed, would go much further, I doubt this is the issue to lead on. It has done me no good.
I don't think so far it has done anyone any good who has tried to argue for a more mature attitude towards pornographic content, Jimbo and Herostratus included. Or for an attitude towards this content that more closely matches that employed by what we call reliable sources. Yet it is an issue that cannot be bypassed. Once a more mature community consensus on this issue is reached, a lot of other things will fall into place. It is a key issue, and an emblematic reflection of the present community demographics which we are hoping to change.
That said, it should be possible to resurrect the essay in the Wikipedia namespace if others are motivated to do so, and the author's WP:OWN issues are dealt with.
Herostratus makes the point that --
"Look, the Britannica doesn't host porn. Are they 'censored'? Of course not. They are exercising editoral judgement. I think it'd be silly to say 'The Britannica is censored'. The Great Chinese Encyclopedia (or whatever they have) is censored, and that's totally different."
It is a sensible point, yet is always greeted with a chorus of "Wikipedia is not censored."
To be clear: Wikipedia is not Britannica, and we will cover and illustrate topics, including sexual topics, that Britannica does not. I am not saying that Wikipedia must not have nudity in an article like hogtie bondage, or that Commons must not have creampie images. Reliably published sex manuals etc. have similar images. But we should not blaze a trail on Wikipedia's pages that is way beyond mainstream publishing. We make a policy commitment not to go beyond the standards of reliable sources in our texts, and we should do the same for illustrations in Wikipedia.
The fact is that our present community standards in this and other areas are not defined by sources, but by single young males' interests. The bias of these standards relative to the real-world mainstream is very obvious in this area (especially so in Commons). Not challenging these standards where they clearly depart from mainstream publishing feeds an unreflected sense of entitlement masquerading as self-congratulatory liberalism. We need more reflection, not less.
I understand the reluctance of women, and the silent majority (if indeed there is such a silent "majority"), to get involved in this area, because it will get nasty. But it's a nettle that has to be grasped before things will get better.
YMMV.
Andreas
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