Some people have been talking about putting explicit images of sexual activities on Wikipedia. Still images are being discussed just for now - but what about when we get more bandwidth and server space? Will some people also want to put on actual videos of these sexual practices?
Remember - our goal is to create an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias are not repositories for just any information. In fact, the goal of making an encyclopedia is to bypass 99.9% of the vast amount of images, videos and text that are already extant, and instead use such raw info to construct a summary.
Our goal always has been to write a reliable (and thus well-referenced) encyclopedia-quality article on as many topics as possible. Not including certain phrases or images is *not* censorship. In fact, I get the idea that people who are still crying censorship have no idea what the word means, and have never been subjected to it.
Censorship occurs when you prevent other people from writing about what they want to write about. That is simply not happening here, end of story. I just checked for myself - there are millions of explicit sex images available on the web, easily found on images.google.com. No censorship is occuring.
Christiaan writes:
this is essentially what the argument boils down to. To treat such pictures differently is a cultural statement in itself about that picture. This debate is not so much about what constitutes an appropriate image but which cultural point of view will prevail on Wikipedia. It's one of those issues where
True, but is our task to show pornography in the name of freedom of speech or open culture? Our task is to make an encyclopedia. As such, we should have an academic and well-referenced article on pornography and on various sexual acts, but not host a repositary of shocking sexual images.
To hide or remove such an image is a statement. To keep such an image inline or linked is a statement.
Yes - and our statement is "This is an encyclopedia, not Hustler magazine." If someone wants to view explicit images and videos of sexual acts, then freeedom of speech already exists - there are thousands of outlets for just such things. But presumably people come to Wikipedia to read a professional academic article.
In any case, our encyclopedia is useless if people refuse to read it...and thousands of schools will ban its use if it continues to offer pornographic images (and eventually, videos.) What good is our work if few people can access it? Even if it is not officially banned by entire schools, many teachers will tell their students that Wikipedia is not reliable or professional if we continue this course of extreme sexual explicitness.
Do not get me wrong: We need not censor ourselves by adopting the least offensive text and images - that would be impossible. Somebody will find everything about sex offensive. But we also do not have to go to the other extreme by shoving in what is essentially pornography.
At every edit we should be asking ourselves "Am I helping educate people by creating an encyclopedia?" An educated adult should be able to professionally write about human sexual practices without being coarse, and without showing photographs of men sucking themselves off. I hate to be so blunt, but this is what we are talking about here.
In between puritan censorship and outright use of explicit sexual photographs (or videos) there is plenty of room to write a set of real encyclopedia articles.
Robert (RK)
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Robert wrote:
In any case, our encyclopedia is useless if people refuse to read it...and thousands of schools will ban its use if it continues to offer pornographic images (and eventually, videos.) What good is our work if few people can access it? Even if it is not officially banned by entire schools, many teachers will tell their students that Wikipedia is not reliable or professional if we continue this course of extreme sexual explicitness.
Jimbo himself has said that one of his dreams is to have a copy of Wikipedia on the desk of every schoolchild in Africa. That won't happen whilst Wikipedia is being used as a repository for images which those schoolchildrens' teachers will view as pornographic. It is perfectly possible to present matter-of-fact information about such articles by the use of description and, if need be, a simple line drawing.
I'm sure there must be enough talented artists contributing to WP who would be more than capable of producing such an image (if indeed one is *really* needed, which in the case of [[Autofellatio]] I would disagree) specifically for WP.
Personally I think people ought to be bearing in mind that WP is *not* a sex manual and as such, perhaps it out to be rethought as to exactly how explicit such articles should be in the first place.
regards, Arkady
Robert said:
Some people have been talking about putting explicit images of sexual activities on Wikipedia. Still images are being discussed just for now - but what about when we get more bandwidth and server space? Will some people also want to put on actual videos of these sexual practices?
Yes, a good modern online encyclopedia should almost certainly consider including movies. I seem to recall that Encarta had movies for some topic as far back as 1994. Things have changed somewhat in the past twenty years or so. The sale of the very successful sexually explicit educational video, The Lovers' Guide, through mainstream high street bookstores in 1991 under an 18 certificate showed that the general public is receptive to well presented informational movies on sexual topics. Obviously Wikipedia isn't a "How to" guide of that type, but where a movie would be useful and one is available under GFDL it should be considered.
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 13:19:28 -0800 (PST), Robert rkscience100@yahoo.com wrote:
In any case, our encyclopedia is useless if people refuse to read it...and thousands of schools will ban its use if it continues to offer pornographic images (and eventually, videos.) What good is our work if few people can access it?
That's sloppy logic. Even if every single school in the world banned Wikipedia, the remaining Internet users would be more than "a few". Tens or hundreds of millions of users, as a matter of fact.
Even if it is not officially banned by entire schools, many teachers will tell their students that Wikipedia is not reliable or professional if we continue this course of extreme sexual explicitness.
They may tell their students that, but it does not make it true.
However, the point is a valid one. If we include explicit images (or videos) then we are going to get criticism from those who feel that they are inappropriate. I would not be at all surprised if some people express their views in a vocal fashion and enlist the support of school boards, church congregations or others to make as much fuss as possible. With a sufficient level of noise and complaint from these sort of people Wikipedia, in the mind of the general public, might come to be equated with pornography. Although untrue, this would be the perception, and anybody who cared to investigate need do no more than look up Autofellatio and find a rather "in your face" image. Or, heaven forbid, an explicit video.
Never mind that Google Images will come up with hundreds of explicit images on the same subject and that this is easily accessible to schoolchildren.
Although you would generally have to go looking for such material in order to find it in Wikipedia, this point would be lost or seen as irrelevant by those with an axe to grind and a point to push.
And the end result would be that thousands of schools would ban Wikipedia, which would be a shame.
Is there some way that we can find a technological solution? Have a "splash screen" that warns of explicit images? A cookie that prevents download of "adult content"? Something that will pop up when the casual user navigates to Autofellatio?
All we really need is some sort of hurdle that must be leapt, some button that must be pressed, some door that must be opened.
Robert wrote:
I just checked for myself - there are millions of explicit sex images available on the web, easily found on images.google.com. No censorship is occuring.
Well no one is seriously suggesting that censorship of that other Wikipedia is occurring here.
Christiaan writes:
this is essentially what the argument boils down to. To treat such pictures differently is a cultural statement in itself about that picture. This debate is not so much about what constitutes an appropriate image but which cultural point of view will prevail on Wikipedia. It's one of those issues where
True, but is our task to show pornography in the name of freedom of speech or open culture?
I think our task is to spread and promote knowledge within the realms of the law. If we can promote and spread knowledge about a sexually explicit act and tell a thousand words with a picture then we should.
To hide or remove such an image is a statement. To keep such an image inline or linked is a statement.
Yes - and our statement is "This is an encyclopedia, not Hustler magazine."
But this is hyperbole. We're talking about autofellatio here, not the implementation of a Wikipedia centerfold.
How about "This is an encyclopedia and we don't see the human body as a vessel of sin and shame, we don't have issues with the human body and what it is capable of, and we don't intend to promote the concept of bodily shame and sin through censorship. If other institutions want to censor content down stream that is their prerogative."
If someone wants to view explicit images and videos of sexual acts ... there are thousands of outlets for just such things. But presumably people come to Wikipedia to read a professional academic article.
So what is it that makes an image of a sexually explicit act in an article about a sexually explicit act unprofessional? Why send a person who has come to educate themselves about autofellatio away from the site to view an image when we could show it to them ourselves. We might as well send them away to read about it too.
In any case, our encyclopedia is useless if people refuse to read it...and thousands of schools will ban its use if it continues to offer pornographic images (and eventually, videos.) What good is our work if few people can access it? Even if it is not officially banned by entire schools, many teachers will tell their students that Wikipedia is not reliable or professional if we continue this course of extreme sexual explicitness.
But there are technical solutions to these minor problems.
Do not get me wrong: We need not censor ourselves by adopting the least offensive text and images - that would be impossible. Somebody will find everything about sex offensive. But we also do not have to go to the other extreme by shoving in what is essentially pornography.
The problem is defining pornography, and this has much to do with context. Many people find any image of sex pornographic. I certainly don't find the controversial image pornographic in the context that it is in.
An educated adult should be able to professionally write about human sexual practices without being coarse, and without showing photographs of men sucking themselves off.
But this exactly what we are trying to describe and an image, as they say, tells a thousand words. To tell you the truth I think a better image in this case would be one where the man gets much of his penis in his mouth.
Christiaan
On Sun, Feb 13, 2005 at 10:44:04PM +0000, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
How about "This is an encyclopedia and we don't see the human body as a vessel of sin and shame, we don't have issues with the human body and what it is capable of, and we don't intend to promote the concept of bodily shame and sin through censorship. If other institutions want to censor content down stream that is their prerogative."
Hear, hear!
That said, I agree with Jimbo that the *specific image* in question at [[Autofellatio]] is a pretty crappy one, and one we don't need. It is badly composed, it is almost certainly a copyright violation from "Joe's Discount Boy-Porn and Bait Shop" (or some such), and the guy looks like he's about to burst a blood vessel in either one of two places. Ouch.
Rama's sketch is much more suitable -- not because it *is* a sketch, but because it is a stylistically better depiction than the photo. There's also the advantage that s/he has made a series of these sketches for the various sexual-position articles, thus giving a consistent appearance to them.
[snip]
The problem is defining pornography, and this has much to do with context. Many people find any image of sex pornographic. I certainly don't find the controversial image pornographic in the context that it is in.
Many people who seek to ban "pornography" in the general case -- that is, wishing to punish ownership and creation of it, not just wishing to see it not published on Wikipedia -- don't stop with images. They wish to ban "obscene" novels, sex-education material, and other sexually explicit *textual* matter as well.
(Let's not forget that _Ulysses_ was once banned in the United States for its passages dealing with sex and bodily functions. And it hasn't got any illustrations -- just plain text on plain paper.)
There are vile persons in the world who wish to impose ignorance of sexuality, by force of law. "But we don't have any dirty pictures!" is not going to work as a defense in those people's eyes. It isn't pictures they are trying to destroy, but rather thoughts.