On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 06:50, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
Three more things that I want to state clearly based on these conversations:
Commons bases "identifiably" on the face of an individual. While in many situations, that maybe the only way to identify an individual, when it comes to nudity, etc, there is more to identify than just a face. Any sexually active person can often remember specific features etc. of current and past lovers (birth marks, hair patterns, piercings, whatever), porn star they watch, models they like (I can pick out Bettie Page's sucked in stomach, Tempest Storm's legendary "moneymakers" and my favorite Suicide Girls tattooed back from a mile away without heads..) etc. As SlimVirgin stated - the "model" is identifiable to those who know her. (And yes, slippery slope again..) However, I really doubt that we'd have much weight with this argument, but, perhaps I'm wrong in that. We must stress that objectification goes beyond women on Commons. Men are objectified, however, generally in a different manner by "self-imposed objectification" - uploading photographs of their own body parts and self-indulgent photographs, while it appears others upload images of women "on their behalf". Objectification of culture is a major problem, especially when it comes to Asian women. Whether it's anime pornography (which we have plenty of and people argue that it's educational because of the tools or techniques used to create it) or photographs of "Korean vulvas" which feature "hot Korean girls" (or whatever). I notice there is a similar situation with Eastern/Eurasian women as well. Something has to change - while these women might not be active on Commons, someone has to have a voice for them.
The expertise about what it means for a photograph to identify a person is out there, so it's just a question of accessing it. In journalism, when a court orders a publication ban on identifying someone, you can't argue that your description of them did not identify them to the general reader. If you write about them in a way that allows their local circle to recognize them that's often sufficient to trigger contempt of court proceedings.
This Commons guideline -- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:IDENT -- discusses what's meant by "private place," but doesn't say how the law defines "identifiable."
Sarah