On 4/12/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote: Frankly, I see nothing particularly offensive about the photo. I see no need to have it deleted on the spot as pornographic or anything like that. However, I also believe that there is room for constructive discussion about its use on any particular article. I'm one of the three people in the US who have not seen this movie, so I cannot comment on this particular scene's importance to the overall movie. What does concern me is the tone that is used by some people on each side in these conversations. One one hand we have people who want no nudity in Wikipedia at all, and who seem to consider almost any nudity as offensive. On the other hand, we have those people who consider almost any discussion about such images as being extreme prudism or attempted censorship. From both sides there is name-calling and labeling. I take it as a given that we don't want to encourage censorship on Wikipedia. There is significant weight to the argument that "when you go to an encyclopedia article about the penis, you should expect to see a penis," though some "decency" advocates will insist otherwise. On the other hand, I also take it as a given that we want to encourage good editorial judgment on wikipedia. If I go to an encyclopedia article about a kneecap, I don't expect to see a penis along with the kneecap. I fear that, if some "free-speech advocates" have their way, removing such a photo from the Kneecap article would be dubbed as censorship. Somewhere in between those two examples lie situations such as the Winslet (partial) nude being used on the [[Titanic (1997 movie)]] article. People of integrity, intelligence and good intention can disagree about it. Can we do so without hurling vitriol at one another? -- Rich Holton [[W:en:User:Rholton]]

For me, the largest part of the problem with the Kate Winslet nude is that it renders all of Wikipedia non-work-safe. You can defend the autofellatio picture by asking "why are you looking at an article about sucking your own dick while at work?" but if any article that mentions any person can have a nude picture of that person, I don't dare use Wikipedia anywhere but in the privacy of my own bedroom, with the shades drawn. Right now, anyone at my place of work who happens to look up Kate Winslet will be disciplined. If he then inadvertently trips over another Wikinude, he'll be fired. In other words, Wikipedia is now unusable in a buttoned-down professional environment. Some of you, of course, think that makes Wikipedia a better thing. -- Sean Barrett | There is no cause for alarm -- sean(a)epoptic.com | but there probably will be.

How does using a tabbed browser save me from having a nude appear on my screen? Believe it or not, we have good reasons to look things up while at work, including articles about people. If any biographical article can have a nude of that person, however, we won't be using Wikipedia to do so. I agree that many of these non-work-safe pictures are trolling efforts, but I think we're already on the bridge, jumping up and down. -- Sean Barrett | There is no cause for alarm -- sean(a)epoptic.com | but there probably will be.

Corporate policy prohibits all images of nudity, out of fear of sexual harassment lawsuits. Repeat offenses result in termination. I love Wikipedia, but I'm not going to lose my job because the Wikipedia community feels it necessary to show bare boobies. -- Sean Barrett | Hostes alienigeni me abdxerunt. Qui annus est? sean(a)epoptic.com

On 4/13/05, Sean Barrett <sean(a)epoptic.org> wrote: Sean brings up a good point here. As long as Mediawiki is without a content filtering system, the possibility of problems arising from images or other content exists. It's quite plausible that someone could, say, lose his or her job because of viewing a Wikipedia article and then sue the Foundation for damages, asserting that the Foundation did not give fair warning about such content. We do have a disclaimer, but that may not be sufficient, especially since it's linked at the bottoms of articles. --Slowking Man

Well the uploader was [[User:1337]] lets look at his contributions and see what we can found out. His first two edits were to to put upload that picture and put into the article. A new user know how to find Special:upload is not unheard of but... Well to continue the user created [[11th millennium]] which is currently listed on VFD and looks like it is going to be deleted. next there is an edit to very POV edit to [[0s BC]] which gets reverted Then then the user blanks his talk page Finialy the User uploads [[Image:Msspyware.png]] a faked image with no mention that it is faked (It is a low grade bit of antimicrsoft propergander) and inserts it into an article again with no mention that it is faked. Now I suspose he could be looking for the title of most clueless newbie every but I'm not to sure -- geni

Source? Who ever it was was able to find [[Special:Upload]] fast so they have a least a couple of functioning brain cells See above -- geni

Alphax wrote: "Marginally nude" is still nudity. One breast counts as nudity. You can argue that nudity should be allowed on Wikipedia, and I might even agree with you, but a spade's a spade. And you can't seriously mean that disabling images is a real solution to the problem. We'd have to have a notice on the main page, e.g. "Note: Nudity may appear in any entry. If you are offended by nudity, please disable images in your browser." I don't think that would go over well. I agree that this is a very good question. But the workplace isn't the only context where being seen using a site with random nudity on it has social consequences. So I think there's still some need for policies. How hard would it be to add to Mediawiki the option to tag explicit images, and have an option in the preferences to not see them? A la Google SafeSearch. This might be a win-win (aside from the programming work) solution. Zach

The people or organizations likely to want content tagging would require complete tagging, or else it would be useless to them, right? Yet being a wiki and volunteer, Wikipedia could never be "safeguarded" to their satisfaction. Is this not a useless discussion?

And while I haven't given a whole lot of thought to this, a keyword scheme in addition to a rating categorization scheme could also have other benefits, like being able to search through images better. I don't see why a rating categorization scheme (and maybe a keyword system, not too sure about that one) it should be avoided if it doesn't harm anybody, and only offers optional positive enhancements to users who want it. -- Blog: http://frazzydee.ca -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS d? s:- a--- C+++ UL++ P+ L+ E---- W++ N+ o+ K+ w+ O? M-- V? PS++ PE Y PGP++ t 5-- X+ R tv b++ DI++ D+ G++ e- h! !r !z ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ Faraaz Damji wrote:

On 4/14/05, Zach Alexander <zdalexander(a)gmail.com> wrote: I don't think there's anything wrong with allowing arbitrary tagging. There may be something wrong with any particular filtering system, and I'm not sure we should support any one in particular. Offering people the ability to edit metadata tags, without making some Official Policy concerning how they will be used, would be a useful addition to the wiki-toolbox. These tags/keywords could be optionally shown at the top of each page and at the bottom of each image, for editors who wanted to see it... or just shown in a separate section linked to at the bottom of each article/image page. SJ ps - there was a similar outcry about the possible introduction of Categories; with some people insisting that since there was no One Good Way to categorize things, cats would just be a mess, would be pov, etc.

Rebecca said: There are no a priori access restrictions on Wikipedia. If the pictures offend you, don't download them.

Ray Saintonge said: I don't think we can say whether a given picture is or is not likely to be offensive to anyone--for instance I was utterly unprepared for the apparently genuine expressions of distress at the presence of a smudgy nipple, and I don't think that's an untypical attitude. I'm not going to stand in the way of those who want to give it a go, though. We use consensus for judging a lot of stuff on Wikipedia and although it isn't infallible it seems to work better than you'd think it oughta.

Rebecca said: Not at all. Do you use Internet Explorer? 95% of people do. The other day I gave a step-by-step demo of how to make that browser replace all pictures by placeholders, so you have fine control over the download of images on an image-by-image basis. This is the way I normally browse WWW when I'm in a situation where I either am not interested in looking at pictures or know that some images may be unwanted for other reasons. It's much nicer than having your browser download everything, especially if you're on dial-up. Most other browsers can also do this.

Ray Saintonge said: Indeed. But it should not operate to the detriment of all users just because some of them are ignorant of browser settings.

Rebecca said: Please re-read my emails. I have not attacked you, nor have I accused you of being computer-illiterate.

Jack Lutz said: I think it may be, ultimately, because I suspect that the people making a clamor about the odd nipple or whatever are probably not going to be satisfied until the offending object is removed. I could be wrong, though, so I don't object to people trying this in an effort to make Wikipedia better.

Zach Alexander said: This seems reasonable, though I'm not sure if it would be workable in practice. I still lean heavily towards the view that the reader know best precisely which images he prefers, and if it matters to him he can choose to download those images and precisely those images. But I think the best and simplest server-side support for suppressing downloads that we could give to users would be one that turned all inlines into links. The best browsers already provide a facility to do something similar and I use it all the time on Internet Explorer and Firefox. There should also be an option on links (all links, not just the ones that are suppressed inlines) that renders the image as part of the article. Incidentally anyone with IE can try this out: Go to Tools/Internet Options Click the Advanced tab Under Multimedia make the following changes: Ensure that Show Image Download Placeholders is checked Ensure that Show Pictures is unchecked If you now click OK and reload the current page, any pictures will be replaced by a placeholder. To view any of these pictures in the page, hover over the placeholder and select "Show Picture" in the right mouse button menu. It's that simple. No server-side support is required. One possible way of making server-side filtering scale is for motivated editors to create their own ratings for images. [[User:Example/Classification/NotSuitableForKids]] might contain a list of links to images that, in the opinion of User:Example, are unsuitable for kids. Someone for whom this kind of thing matters can then pop this into his Censorship file, with the result that he won't be able to download anything that gets put into that article. The system would be based on trust. People with religious objections and whatnot could club together and maintain their censor lists without bothering anybody else.

David Gerard wrote: Thumbs up, Tony and David. Minimal coding; maximum Wiki. Tom Haws

Karl A. Krueger said: It works for me, especially if I'm browsing from work. It is linked from every single page on Wikipedia.

geni said: It's at the top of the disclaimer. The only text prior to that is the article title (Wikipedia:General disclaimer) and the attribution (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) It reads as follows: "General disclaimer - Use Wikipedia at your own risk - Wikipedia does not give medical advice - Wikipedia does not give legal opinions - Wikipedia contains spoilers and content you may find objectionable" The latter phrase is linked to the content disclaimer which expands further on the kind of stuff to expect.

Perhaps we can identify some reasonable notion of "work-safeness" and work to make the user experience work-safe for all of our readers. Our primary goal should be to make the encyclopedia a useful and reliable resource, for as many people as possible, in as many environments as possible. This includes making it reliably safe to let one's children use the encyclopedia, to refer to articles for illustration in the middle of a discussion or presentation, regardless of audience, to browse the encyclopedia at work. I am not sure how to address the first case above - providing a site that parents would feel comfortable letting their 6-year-old browse. But I think we can deal with the last two scenarios pretty well without a great deal of work. At each step along the way, we can assume that the reader is '''doing his or her best''' to avoid looking up undesired pages or content. Editors should avoid surprising users by showing them content they did not expect, and do not want, to see on a particular subject. For instance, we have {{spoiler}} messages. We should have the same kinds of messages for potentially offensive content [somehow I thought we did by now, but it seems this is not so.] I've added a few templates ('obscenity', 'graphicviolence', and 'nonworksafe') to the end of the General templates page; please see whether the text is appropriate, and add them to articles where needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/General I think it is fair to assume that readers are doing all they can /not/ to come across content that they or their employers find inappropriate. It is also polite to warn readers when they are about to be shocked. 1. If the title of the article does *not* make it clear that it is not worksafe, or about violent or obscene or nude subjects; or 2. If the content of one section, despite its relevance to the article as a whole, is unusually graphic, or potentially offensive/startling; then a spoiler-type warning is probably appropriate. On 4/13/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport(a)bluebottle.com> wrote: Images are a significant portion of the encyclopedia. No-one should have to turn images off simple because of a few poorly-announced and surprisingly-placed "non-work-safe" images. -- +sj+

Would you like to withdraw that statement? If not can you provide any sources to back it up (ie that every person who useses it doesn't know how to use a web browser?) -- geni

Stan Shebs said: Precisely. You're blaming Wikipedia for your boss's cluelessness. Indeed. We could make Wikipedia "child safe" (another utterly pointless term when applied to anything a three-year-old couldn't choke on), we could make it "granny safe", but it would be silly because all the people demanding that we make Wikipedia "such-and-such safe" are blaming their communication problems on Wikipedia and saying Wikipedia must be changed. Why do they do that? Presumably because it would involve less effort on their part if Wikipedia were to change to suit *their* personal requirements, and forget all that stuff about making a great encyclopedia. They wouldn't have to go about their difficult personal responsibilities, those of educating their clueless boss, or their children, or their granny, or failing that, ensuring that their non-Wikipedia-safe boss, child or granny is not operated in a manner that could cause damage to Wikipedia. Or a downstream brain cell?

On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 05:30:08PM +0100, geni wrote: Let's step back a moment and look at this from a more "principles of the discussion" perspective. I think you're both responding based on being too close to the details of the landscape, and missing the "big picture" panorama before you. 1. Tony Sidaway supports the idea that Wikipedia should be technically effective, and to heck with social factors that interfere with that in any way. 2. geni supports the idea that Wikipedia, to maximize opportunity for survival and growth, must pay homage to social conventions that demand certain (effectively arbitrary) limits on technical implementation. My personal sympathies lie pretty well perfectly aligned with Tony's stance. I'm very much a "technical accuracy first, social pandering if we have time later" sort of person. Yes, I phrased that pejoratively, because that's how I tend to think of it. That doesn't mean I don't see the point of geni's stance. Both are absolutely correct within the realm of their primary concerns in this debate. There are two constructive approaches that come immediately to my mind for resolving the matter: 1. We can take the organic growth approach, and try to just balance the two as well as we can by (very) rough consensus. This is what we're already doing. The big downside is that these arguments will continue indefinitely. I'll leave upside(s) as an exercise for the reader. 2. We can draft a set of guiding principles by which such matters will be judged, beginning with a logical progression from the core purpose of the project as a whole. My knee-jerk sympathies lie with this option, for much the same reasons that they lie as well with the "technical accuracy" approach above, but the big downside to this approach is the fact that, ultimately, such principles have to come from SOMEwhere, and in a very democratic ("mob rule") and consensus-driven environment there is little hope that the guiding principles will be decided for the right reasons, regardless of whether the right principles are chosen for the most part. Again, I'll leave upside(s) as an exercise for the reader. So. Armed with this semipretentious breakdown of the conditions of the argument, do you think we might take a more productive approach to discussing the matter than oblique sniping? -- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]

On 4/15/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport(a)bluebottle.com> wrote: I wasn't aware that social enginearing was the aim of this project. -- geni

Is this a purely theoretical discussion? Naming that page as an example of a page that isn't "work safe" is laughable. Surely, in most work-places it isn't work safe to waste your salaried time reading up about Titanic, but THAT PARTICULAR IMAGE does not make the page less "work safe" than it already is. -- mvh Björn

How many people look through the history files? -- geni

We are not respociple for the actions of people offsite. That fact is that at present wikipedia does not make a very good shock site. I would like to keep things this way. As I showed no they don't. In that version there was no way to know what they are going to see if they allow the image through. Uniformed choice is meaningless. -- geni

At that is a bad thing how? If I wanted to cause trouble at RR I would post some stats showing that christians in the US are in the majority or something. Anyway alturnativly he just rehosts the goatse and links to that (although linking to the skeptic's bible would probably result in a bigger fuss). And how am I ment to know that titanic is PG13 (a rating that doesn't even exist in my country)? -- geni

Not really RR is not quite as uptight as you seem to think. There is even a disscussion on pubic hair shaveing in there somewhere. Snow white and the seven dawfes? Most of the stuff listed as U in the UK?

Appel to authority logical fallacy. You haven't explained why they shouldn't just link to a mirror of a shock site for a much more effective effect. They may get shocked at movies but they will not expect to get shocked by encyopedia articles. -- geni

geni wrote: Uninformed choice is also meaningless. Ec

Tony Sidaway wrote: Are you fifteen years old or what? I'm describing the realities of the workplace - responsible adults with mortgages and families depending on them don't get themselves fired just to make a free speech point. You can fulminate about it all you want, but that's not going to change anything. A WP with nudity on every page (which sounds great to me actually, much more interesting than what we have now :-) - I can contribute scans of my "nudes on postage stamps") is certainly doable, and will no doubt have a contingent characterizing the result as a "great encyclopedia", but its readership will be rather limited. You can expect to see a great many forks at that point, and most editors will likely migrate to one of them, because they're going to go where the readers are to be found. So the situation will resolve itself in favor of a somewhat restrictive image policy sooner or later; just a question of whether you want to do it now, or after a painful forking process. Stan

Tom Haws said: I don't accept that you have removed the personal attack. There is still the blatantly false claim that people who disagree with X or Y's deletionist argument are implicitly "trying to make a free speech point". I do not argue for free speech, ever--the concept is virtually unknown in my country and not one that I consciously espouse. This is simply a matter of employees falsely claiming that Wikipedia must change in order to solve their own personal communication and web navigation problems.

Stan Shebs said: So the situation is this. You think that USGS would be willing to assign one of its technical writers to improve geometric data, but this chap is unlikely to want to use Wikipedia in its current state because he might be falsely accused, by person or persons unknown, of sexual harassment? Curiouser and curiouser! I'm afraid you'll have to sort that one out for yourself. Wikipedia really shouldn't be involved in accommodating or condoning this kind of corporate idiocy.

Stan Shebs said: Most ironic. This isn't something we can do anything about. Perhaps you could try voting for some sane congresscritters.

We would also like for the Saudi Geological Survey's professionals to contribute data to Wikipedia. I've heard that they are a very open-minded bunch. However, SGS is attached to the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and it would be very unfortunate if something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman popped up while Fahd bin Abdul Aziz visits the office. -- mvh Björn

BJörn Lindqvist wrote: Indeed that's a very good point. The way I look at it is purely utilitarian; would the Saudis be able to contribute a large amount of good new content? If so, I would look for ways to accommodate their sensitivities. After all, WP is supposed to be a encyclopedia for everybody, not just another vehicle for Europeans and Americans to impose their cultural standards on the rest of the world, right? To put it another way, if you had to make a choice between a Kate Winslet picture and a thousand subject matter experts working on WP fulltime, which would you go for? I'd delete the image in a second. Stan

Sj said: Let me be clear that this is not limited to images, or to nudity (hemi-semi or otherwise). An all-text page about the last decade of FCUK ads from the French Connection, which included a 600px version of their text FCUK logo, would also not be work-safe. As we start to improve the inclusion of sound and video, both linked and streaming, we will have to find ways to warn people of all manner of media that are not work-safe; pages which will automatically play loud sounds (the sound of a car crash as you open [[auto accident]], perhaps?) would fall into the same category. -- +sj+

geni wrote: Even many of us on broadband are likely to find this unappealing. Automatically playing embedded sounds in a page ranks up there with automatically opening popup windows on my list of internet annoyances... -Mark

On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 04:44:32AM -0400, Sj wrote: Whose workplace? I know a couple who who work in a sex-toy shop. Their work involves using words like "clitoris" and "fellatio" (though they'd almost certainly use earthier terms) all day. Attempting to reduce Wikipedia to some kind of lowest common denominator of inoffensiveness is just as absurd on the grounds of "being work-safe" as it is on the grounds of "being child-safe". It is an impossible goal; but attempting to pursue it can cause untold harm to the project in the form of chilling effects, irreconcilable disputes, and biased coverage. Wikipedia doesn't need censorious categorization. We are getting on _just fine_ without it. Speculations of the sort, "If we don't put up some kind of censorship, we could get sued!" are the "Niger yellowcake" of this discussion -- a nonexistent threat that is being pounded on to justify a preexisting agenda. -- Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger(a)whoi.edu>

I think we all know what is being refured to Evidence? Evidence? Are you a lawer? Are you giving your formal legal opion? -- geni

Karl A. Krueger wrote: So you're saying Sean actually has to lose his job before you'll believe he's taking a risk by using WP at work? Stan

Karl A. Krueger (kkrueger(a)whoi.edu) [050415 05:47]: Seconded. Cut this crap without some really quite solid backing. - d.

Wow, that's an amazingly helpful comment, Tony. I'm so glad you're here; you're such a valuable contributor to this project. -- Sean Barrett | Life is complex -- you know, sean(a)epoptic.com | part real and part imaginary.

Forget about it? Are you seriously suggesting that the [[NSFW]] article is accepterable? It is barely even a stub. -- geni

On 4/14/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote: Alphax, I agree that the petty flame-wars -- including bickering and thinly-disguised name-calling -- needs to stop. It seems that some email messages have little purpose beyond one-upsmanship; they don't seem to contribute anything to the goal of creating a great encyclopedia. But I don't know that we can simply ignore this issue until the foundation makes a proposal. I'm not sure that the foundation is inclined to do that. Nor am I certain that it would be desirable for them to do so. I believe that the Wikipedia community still has enough thoughtful people that a workable consensus can be achieved on controversial issues such as this. It will take time and effort, and it will take some of the same skills that we use to create NPOV articles. Isn't the ability to see and understand POV's other than your own important, if not essential, to our task? However, that particular skill seems to be quite lacking in some recent conversations. I'm guessing that many involved Wikipedians who have that skill in abundance are not interested in engaging in the type of dialog that has been common of late. I suspect they're busily working on generating NPOV content. Perhaps when the flames die down, some real progress can be made. -- Rich Holton [[W:en:User:Rholton]]

Faraaz Damji said: Not really. There are those who promote the concept of "work safe" and those who use their browsers in a manner that does not conflict with their employers' standards. Censorship has nothing to do with it.

On Friday, April 15, 2005 12:31 AM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: Geni, dear, the point that he is so obviously making with a subtlety that even surpasses a hoard of rhinos charging and engaging with an ocean liner perched on a precipice, but that you seem fixated on requiring him to spell out in big flashing shiny letters is that, were one able to "know how to user their browsers" (by which it is meant, were one aware of and able to use some form of functionality in their browser that prevented images from being downloaded unless specifically requested), then one desirious of not being surprised by images being loaded that one did not want would, indeed, engage such a device. Happy? Please stop this tiresome pettiness in demanding "answers" to rhetorical questions. Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james(a)jdforrester.org | jon(a)eh.org | csvla(a)dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester(a)hotmail.com

Tony Sidaway wrote: This really is the only long term solution. We add some buttons in Special:Preferences, and have two or three options -- e.g. uncensored/moderate/strict. Explicit content would automatically be filtered from then on, or not. It would involve more work coding, and more work maintaining tags on explicit content, and arguments about whether [[Image:Y]] should get tagged as explicit or not, and so on. But there's no other long term solution I can think of, because we do need to have boobs and clitorises in the appropriate places, but people do need to have a way not to see them if they'd rather not. (Making the user disable images doesn't count as a solution.) A fork on the basis of censorship would be unlikely after then. Zach

SPUI wrote: You're right -- I realized there was some POV there, but didn't realize just how much, until Karl explained why on the other thread. In my reply to him I said something along similar lines to what you seems to be suggesting. Zach

Tony Sidaway wrote: I'm all for good use of language, and it would seem that SPUI has let "expkicit" run adrift. Even to say that it is a synonym for "overt" does not say the whole story since there is also the meaning of something being clearly stated or demonstrated. If the picture clearly shows Miss Winslet's left breast it is explicitly demonstrated. The picture, however, does not show her right breast which would be in a darkened part of the picture. The absence of clothing and her general posture might lead one to conclude that her right breast is implicitly bare. Ec

On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 12:45:04PM +0100, Tony Sidaway wrote: I think it's been made tolerably obvious at this point that anyone does have the option to disable images, *and* that users of well-designed browsers are frequently even capable of displaying or refusing images on a per-site basis. This likely doesn't need to be reiterated again. I'm curious about the proposals for free-form tagging systems, where users would have the option to block out images or text matching specific sets of tags that they chose. I'm not sure that any such system could actually meet Wikipedia's needs and at the same time fulfill the desires of those who call for greater restriction on images. To start with, it's not clear to me that such a system could do what some people are asking for -- that is, creating a view of Wikipedia that would be "work-safe" or otherwise fitting some particular content censorship standard. That goal seems impossible unless a tagging system suiting that standard were *mandatory* -- that is, any edit violating the tagging system would have to be considered abusive. This is not a rule that I would expect to garner community consensus, especially since the judgment of what content merits a particular tag would be POV-laden. (Consider: What is the point of a "violence" tag if people who post images of violence are not required to use it? People can depend on such a system only if it is mandatory, but making it mandatory violates Wikipedia principles ... especially since people can be expected to disagree on what deserves the label "violence".) I also think it's pretty clear that *no* such system will suit the goals of those who really do want to marginalize or exclude "evil" expression from the public arena. Those who actually want to _remove_ nudity or violence or sex education or "cult" content from Wikipedia, under the belief that such material is harmful to the public morality, will not be satisfied by mere tagging. Another concern: Will the presence of a tagging system legitimize the behavior of people who really _do_ simply want to post nudity (or whatever) for its own sake? We already have the problem that people are more ready to talk about an image's offensiveness than its relevance. A tagging system might give an additional argument to people who simply want to put more nudity or violence or what-have-you on Wikipedia, and to hell with relevance: "If you don't want to see it, go turn on more censorship in your filtering preferences." This would be unfortunate. Yet another possible consequence is that people could use a tagging system as a way of searching Wikipedia for all the "naughty images". Let us imagine a curious adolescent who today browses Wikipedia looking for Renaissance nude paintings, swimsuit images like those on [[Bikini]], the sketches of sexual positions, and so on. By aggregating all the nudity in an easy-to-find category, tagging would make it _easier_, not harder, to use Wikipedia as a source of titillation. This could even lend itself to greater calls for the deletion of such material -- since it would make it trivial to construct a "nudes of Wikipedia" view that would highlight just that particular content. -- Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger(a)whoi.edu>

Faraaz Damji wrote: <snip> Suppose I want to learn about something. I look it up in an encyclopedia. The paper kind. I might happen to see something offensive. But how do I know I could see something offensive unless I know what it is? Your argument "if you don't want to see a clitoris, don't go to clitoris" doesn't help people who don't know what a clitoris is. Therefore, saying "I might not want to have a picture of a guy masturbating appear right next to the information" falls into the same category - you can't object to something if you don't know what it is. It's like goatse - highly offensive, but unless you know what it is, you can't avoid it. -- Alphax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis

Andrew Cranwell said: Unless you see it and react to it, how can you know that you'll be offended by it? Don't ask me to second-guess your reaction if you don't know yourself.

Rebecca said: That may be true of goatse and even possibly autofellation. But a nude scene from a PG13 movie? I could not have guessed at the extreme reactions it has provoked from people. You have not demonstrated any fallacy.

Rebecca said: It's awkward and clunky. It may be appropriate with images that many people may find shocking, but it still stops one of the image's major functions, which is to adorn the page and break up the text, so it's clearly inappropriate for most cases where you get piddling objections about boobs and whatnot.

are you seriously trying to suggest that there is a significant percentage of earth population that would not be offended by the the goatse? -- geni

Christiaan Briggs wrote: The expression is really "a load of ballocks", not "bullocks". That might better satisfy autofellatio-man's hunger. :-) Ec

You now appear to be trying to speak on behalf of the worlds population. -- geni

So you have nothing more than your personal opion to base your argument on? -- geni

No I was asking a question. Now if you read [[Nudity]] you will find that most of the world population has some form of nudity taboo. -- geni

Yup for some reason artitisic nudes seem to have more accptance I must say I popped down to that Yup but they all seem to have some form of nudity taboo (even if it only to limit nudity to certian areas). -- geni

On 4/18/05, Tony Sidaway &lt;minorityreport(a)bluebottle.com&gt; wrote: Bit hard to tell really it was mostly hidden Persoanly I would not have described south america as a tiny minority.

Puddl Duk said: I agree. I don't see much encyclopedic value in putting up Mr goatse. I just challenge the idea that it's such a shocking picture. It's a bit pathetic, the poor man must be in considerable discomfort, and it's very demeaning. But please, let's not pretend that it's as shocking as many encyclopedic pictures that we do carry with good reason. We've even got apicture of a chap about to have his head blown off by a uniformed nutter with a revolver, and I shouldn't be surprised if we had a picture of that poor napalmed little girl (Kim Phuc Phan Thi, who fortunately was taken to hospital by the photographer and now works as a UN ambassador for children). Why do people go out of their way to denounce this or that picture as shocking, when there are photographs like that around to remind us of what is really shocking about human behavior?

The suspicious speed they have been turning up since the clitorsis incerdent. Not that I really care. Sonner or latter this will be settled because everyone will be totaly fed up (the power of apathy to settle dissputes) -- geni

Sounds right the long running fight to keep it there is I suspect the reason for arbcom involvement appearence of goatse was very close to autofetllo incerdent to close. No. I don't think anyone has uploaded more than one. Hard to say 1 every 1-2 mounths which since there is very little PD stuff is fast. More significantly is the change in rate. For a long time uploads were very slow with the only photos I am aware of being either painting or the ones on the articles about the relivant areas of the human body. Do you remeber how much trouble had finding a picture with copyright for the clitoris article. It took ages. It doesn't seem to be taking that long any more. -- geni

Charles Matthews said: Actually I've heard of that test. It's a venerable old thing. The article is encyclopedic and the redeployment of an existing illustration is absolutely inspired. It just goes to show that it's easy to misread intention if one doesn't know the context. Example: http://homepage.mac.com/kiltedpride/blogwavestudio/ The Herald October 14th 1999 - It's a Brief Encounter (article about a famous Scottish lawyer who specializes in entertainment law, including obscenity) 'Findlay's fate was destined to be brighter. He started with small theatre contracts and one deal led to another. Today, he heads up Tods Murray's entertainment and media law team and, in his spare time, he sits on the board of the Lyceum. He has worked on films such as Trainspotting, waded through the logistical legal nightmares of organising the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and negotiated the more delicate matters of obscenity. On the latter point, Findlay admits life was once simple. "It used to be the case that as long as it was the same as the Mull of Kintyre, so to speak, all was well with the world, but with certain relaxations on male nudity we can no longer rely on that old adage," explains Findlay.'