Fwiw, I've long thought the presence of graphic
sexual pictures on
Commons, and certainly in Wikipedia, does more harm than good,
because it means the site "can't be trusted" in the eyes of
librarians, teachers, etc etc.
So, in other words, it's a good idea to have rules based on what
people think of us. Perhaps you have other reasons for thinking that
we shouldn't have graphic images on Wikipedia, but since this is only
one that you have expressed, it's the only one I will respond to. I
respectfully disagree. What John Q. Public thinks should only be a
minor factor in Wikipedian policy, NOT the deciding factor.
Sometimes a graphic sexual or anatomical image is warranted for
educational purposes. If anything, that would mean that teachers and
librarians should trust us more (albeit sometimes secretly due to
workplace politics or policies), since we aren't afraid to, for
example, have an article about a famous, explicit painting, and to
also have that painting in the article. Should the policies
surrounding such images need to be clarified? Sure. But regardless of
the chanting of "Think of the children!", we need to not ban such
images entirely.
Emily
On May 11, 2010, at 4:43 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 10:08 AM, David Gerard
<dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 11 May 2010 00:12, Carcharoth
<carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
Can you explain why Wikipedia and Wikimedia tends
to avoid having
explicit guidelines on such matters?
It's a gross NPOV violation.
I don't see it, David. An NPOV violation would be something like a
rule against articles on sexual practices discussing whether or not
they appear in the bible, or something. I don't really see how the
absence of graphic images changes the neutrality of the content
otherwise.
Fwiw, I've long thought the presence of graphic sexual pictures on
Commons, and certainly in Wikipedia, does more harm than good, because
it means the site "can't be trusted" in the eyes of librarians,
teachers, etc etc.
Steve
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