More opinions would be welcome at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio#Poll:_Should_the_image_be_sho...
This is an explicit image of the act of autofellatio - at the moment we are not getting a very clear idea of the community view on this question.
Please reply there rather than on-list, this is just to get a wider selection of contributors commenting there.
Thanks
--sannse
sannse a écrit:
More opinions would be welcome at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio#Poll:_Should_the_image_be_sho...
This is an explicit image of the act of autofellatio - at the moment we are not getting a very clear idea of the community view on this question.
without getting involved in the issue of showing or not showing the picture, just a comment...
... the lowest part of the image is cut. I actually wondered if it was REALLY autofellatio...It may be that the image is not honestly reporting what we are led to believe it is.
Ant
sannse wrote:
More opinions would be welcome at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio#Poll:_Should_the_image_be_sho...
I have contributed to this debate by removing the image from the page for now, and posting a comment as to why I did it.
"Note: I have removed the image from the page, and I suggest that it remain so for now. This poll should continue to run in order to allow for full expression of opinion on this complex topic, but in the meantime showing such a photo absent overwhelming community support is unhelpful. I invite people to think carefully about this photo in the context of an overall view of our charitable, humanitarian, educational mission, and not be distracted by arguments about censorship and prudishness, which are very much beside the point here. --Jimbo Wales 05:24, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)"
In my opinion, the community has unfortunately allowed itself to be trolled. The photo is terrible.
We went through this with 'clitoris'. We used to have a photo there which was terrible and in poor taste. Now we have an image which is educational in style.
We Do NoT AlLoW PeOpLe To TyPe LiKe ThIs in wikipedia. It hurts the eyes on purely aesthetic and editorial grounds which have nothing to do with prudishness or censorship.
The poll (in which I have not voted) is currently 56-42, which tells me that we are moving in the right direction. Of course, even when the image is "shown as a link", it is going to be deleted anyway, because it's almost certainly a copyvio.
--Jimbo
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We went through this with 'clitoris'. We used to have a photo there which was terrible and in poor taste. Now we have an image which is educational in style.
Actually no lessons were learnt from the "clitoris" experience other than to embolden those who wish to promote the use of such explicit material (hence the circus over the autofellatio pic). Had the pronciples been decided then and there, there would have been no repeat performance. The picture on the [[Clitoris]] page is of the [[Vulva]] and shows only the area of location of the glans clitoris, but not the external part of the clitoris at all. There is already a pic of the vulva on the [[Vulva]] page so what pray tell is the educational value of this pic in the context of the clitoris?
Robert
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Jimmy-
We went through this with 'clitoris'. We used to have a photo there which was terrible and in poor taste.
I beg to differ. So far, I still haven't seen any reasonable argument on what was wrong with the original picture. And, as I recall, it could be tracked down to a website about the clitoris, not to a porn site. You will have to accept that many people are not happy to follow someone else's opinion on what is "terrible and in poor taste"."
Aesthetics is not something which is easy to argue about, obviously. In the clitoris discussion, I got the impression that some people deliberately were looking for "ugly" pictures in order to make sure that any sexual arousal by the image is prevented. Someone even suggested a truly horrible and inaccurate illustration from 1866, when women weren't even believed to be capable of orgasm. Is it objective to say that a vagina or penis which is unattractive is more tasteful and encyclopedic than one which is attractive?
Truthfully, the distinction between "taste and aesthetics" and "offensiveness" is not as big as you seem to imply. The perceptions of both are very much based on personal experiences and values. I think we should stick first and foremost to criteria which are easy to compare. Is the picture accurate? Does it add information to the article? Is the copyright situation clear? Are any personal rights being violated (being in an encyclopedia for the next 100 years might not be agreeable to the subject of a photo)?
Only when we have images which are identical in all these matters, the feelings of the community could be the deciding factor. For example, I'm sure there could be an illustration of autofellatio in the style of the sex position images which would be generally considered more tasteful and less offensive in an encyclopedia article. But I would not want to remove an image which satisfies the above criteria -- not saying the autofellatio one does -- on the grounds that we could potentially have a nicer one in the future. That just seems like an invitation for people to use their personal views of what is tasteful or non-offensive as a justification to push an agenda. The outcome would be a very culturally biased project, though results would vary from page to page.
I have no problem in principle with the removal of the autofellatio photograph on copyright grounds. But aesthetics alone is, I think, a fairly weak argument, and really very similar, if not often identical, to the general argument about offensiveness. The correct answer to that, I believe, is labeling of the content with metadata to allow people to hide it based on their preferences of what they want to see.
Let's be honest here: Someone who really wanted to know about autofellatio -- out of the desire to know about the subject, not out of the desire to discuss its merits as we do -- probably would like to see that photo, even if it's not the best possible one. So I think, if the other criteria were fulfilled, which does not appear to be the case, that it should be available until a generally more popular replacement can be found.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
We went through this with 'clitoris'. We used to have a photo there which was terrible and in poor taste.
I beg to differ. So far, I still haven't seen any reasonable argument on what was wrong with the original picture. And, as I recall, it could be tracked down to a website about the clitoris, not to a porn site. You will have to accept that many people are not happy to follow someone else's opinion on what is "terrible and in poor taste"."
And everyone will have to accept that in a wiki, if your writing style is bad, or your taste in photos is bad, other people will delete it. People who are not happy to follow other people's opinions to a significant degree probably have a lot of stress when wiki editing in general, no?
Aesthetics is not something which is easy to argue about, obviously. In the clitoris discussion, I got the impression that some people deliberately were looking for "ugly" pictures in order to make sure that any sexual arousal by the image is prevented. Someone even suggested a truly horrible and inaccurate illustration from 1866, when women weren't even believed to be capable of orgasm. Is it objective to say that a vagina or penis which is unattractive is more tasteful and encyclopedic than one which is attractive?
Well, it is objective to say that if the purpose of a photo is educational, it needs to be (unlike the 1866 illustration) accurate and informative. And it is also objective to say that if the purpose of a photo is educational, then it should focus on the informational aspect rather than on sexually arousing (or shocking, or whatever) the viewer.
Let's be honest here: Someone who really wanted to know about autofellatio -- out of the desire to know about the subject, not out of the desire to discuss its merits as we do -- probably would like to see that photo, even if it's not the best possible one.
This person will not be hindered by us having the photo as a link.
To be even more informative, we could add a link to the google image search (or similar) with a notice explaining that if you click it, you are likely to get what you're asking for: autofellatio images.
--Jimbo
Jimbo said:
To be even more informative, we could add a link to the google image search (or similar) with a notice explaining that if you click it, you are likely to get what you're asking for: autofellatio images.
You do get a page of reasonable illustrations if you click such a link; however it's a bit hit and miss because what you get depends on the status of the arms race between Google's search engine technology and those who try to game it by including inappropriate keywords. Currently the article has a link to solosuck.com, which contains some high quality stills and video clips or a very talented and enthusiastic autofellator. Of course as with all external sites we may wake up one morning to find that it has become an auction site, a viagra sales site, or something else that would be useless. Or the owner may replace his current stills with lower quality images and remove his video clips.
Erik Moeller wrote:
Let's be honest here: Someone who really wanted to know about autofellatio -- out of the desire to know about the subject, not out of the desire to discuss its merits as we do -- probably would like to see that photo, even if it's not the best possible one. So I think, if the other criteria were fulfilled, which does not appear to be the case, that it should be available until a generally more popular replacement can be found.
I'd disagree with that. There's plenty of things I want to know about but have no real interest in seeing explicit pictures of. I've had occasion to read Wikipedia articles on surgical procedures, for example, but if each of them were liberally sprinkled with highly graphic photographs of actual surgeries, I might find reading them a bit difficult and look elsewhere for that information.
The current situation with articles like [[clitoris]] is similar. I'm not /offended/ per se by clitorises or open-heart surgery, but I don't generally want to see photographs of either of them when I'm reading, unless I've actually clicked on a "click here to see photographs of [...]" link. At the moment, that makes Wikipedia a poor source of information, and one I increasingly do not use.
-Mark
Delirium said:
The current situation with articles like [[clitoris]] is similar. I'm not /offended/ per se by clitorises or open-heart surgery, but I don't generally want to see photographs of either of them when I'm reading, unless I've actually clicked on a "click here to see photographs of [...]" link. At the moment, that makes Wikipedia a poor source of information, and one I increasingly do not use.
A surprising number of present-day web users seem to be unwilling to use, and sometimes even unaware of, their browser's options to turn picture downloads on and off. I have a caterpillar phobia, a rather severe one, but it doesn't stop me browsing Wikipedia because if I want to read about butterflies and the like I adjust my browser.
Jimmy (Jimbo)-
I have contributed to this debate by removing the image from the page
Perhaps you could clarify that this was not done in your role as trustee. I don't believe it was, as you did not consult with Angela and Anthere, so I consider it just like an edit by any other Wikipedia editor, only that, of course, you hope that people will take it more seriously because of the reputation that comes with your role in the project, past and present. That's completely reasonable, if done rarely and in cases you consider important.
The page is currently being edit warred over, and one editor uses the comment "rv to Jimbo's approved version". It would be helpful if you could state here that you are not in the business of approving articles. I believe your edit summary "This image is completely unacceptable for Wikipedia" could be misconstrued to be an official statement, when it is your personal opinon. Some people still see Wikimedia as being governed by a benevolent dictator, and any explanation would help to eliminate that misconception.
I still remember how the Spanish Wikipedia forked over some discussion on advertising. I'm somewhat worried that people might misunderstand your comments, and assume that you are acting as "Chief Editor". On the other side, those who do support the removal of the image might deliberately seek to create that impression in order to further their agenda.
All best,
Erik
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
We Do NoT AlLoW PeOpLe To TyPe LiKe ThIs in wikipedia. It hurts the eyes on purely aesthetic and editorial grounds which have nothing to do with prudishness or censorship.
I understand the concept of appropriateness and to suggest that a picture of a man performing autofellatio on a page describing autofellatio is inappropriate seems farcical to me. To then attempt to turn it into an issue of aesthetics appears disingenuous. I'd be interested to see a picture of someone performing autofellatio that all these people trying to get rid of this picture would find aesthetically pleasing. Of course it boils down to prudishness and censorship, if not personal then cultural.
What I would find most interesting in such debates would be statistics allowing us to analyse any systemic bias. Unfortunately we don't have the data to carry out such analysis.
Christiaan
--- Christiaan Briggs christiaan@last-straw.net wrote:
What I would find most interesting in such debates would be statistics allowing us to analyse any systemic bias. Unfortunately we don't have the data to carry out such analysis.
I would be interested in these statistics too. I'll bet the supporters of these images have a systemic bias along the lines of; male, adolescent or college age, no children.
Christiaan, you have been slapping lables on people who don't vote your way with the zeal and relish of a [[Fire and brimstone]] fundamentalist; "...the prude crusaders", "...puritan cultural POV.." (see the vote pages). I don't appreciate being labled as such.
Nobody likes censorship. But we always need editorial judgement. If we don't keep our own house, we risk far greater censorship by others (schools, work places, etc).
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There seem to be way to much heat in this debate. So far people are focusing solely on three courses of action while forgetting all the rest. Here are some of my ideas:
1. Erik's idea - label it as sexually explicit and then people can turn the family filter on and off. 2. Edit the image so that the glands of the penis (or the whole penis) is blurred. 3. Show the image smaller. I guess the smaller it is showed the less "in your face" it feels.
IMHO, the position of those that wants the image linked or deleted is rediculous. There are hundreds of images on Wikipedia that are "much wore" and there would be thousands of more if it wasn't so hard to find images suitable for the GFDL. I.e. ever seen an image of what a smokers lung look like? It's shown to elementary school children and are in many countries put on packs of cigarettes. I fully expect to see such an image when I go to the article [[Lung cancer]]. I also fully expect to see an image of a human brain when I visit [[Brain]] and I fully expect that those images will shock me much more than the innocent image of the autofellating man.
I totally accept that some images are to gross for Wikipedia to show. Like the rumoured goatsex one. But removing images because some Wikipedia editors think it is porn is unacceptable.
BJörn Lindqvist said:
There seem to be way to much heat in this debate. So far people are focusing solely on three courses of action while forgetting all the rest. Here are some of my ideas:
- Erik's idea - label it as sexually explicit and then people can turn
the family filter on and off. 2. Edit the image so that the glands of the penis (or the whole penis) is blurred. 3. Show the image smaller. I guess the smaller it is showed the less "in your face" it feels.
I had some similar ideas to 2 and 3 shortly before Jimbo pre-empted the autofellatio discussion. I felt that linking to the main image and having a slightly toned down image would probably gain a consensus. I still think this is the way to go and I am convinced that seeking a balance between different levels of display would have been the classic Wiki solution.
I've noticed today that with a few articles I've edited it appears when I check back that my edits haven't been implemented (but in fact they have). I've also seen a few other complaints on talk pages about edits and comments being "erased" though it seems that, in fact, this hasn't happened, it's just that the editor in question cannot see their own edits.
Is there some sort of glitch in the software when it comes to "updating" articles or to the ability of some accounts to "see" updated articles?
Andy
Today's Toronto Star has a very nice NYTimes article on wikipedia and wikinews including a large photo of Jimmy Wales. A week or so ago, by the way, the Toronto Globe and Mail (a "quality broadsheet") had an article on Barbados' plans to ditch the monarchy which included a sidebar on "Commonwealth Realms". At the bottom of the sidebar was a credit line listing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_realms as the sidebar's source.
Andy
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, AndyL wrote:
Today's Toronto Star has a very nice NYTimes article on wikipedia and wikinews including a large photo of Jimmy Wales. A week or so ago, by the way, the Toronto Globe and Mail (a "quality broadsheet") had an article on Barbados' plans to ditch the monarchy which included a sidebar on "Commonwealth Realms". At the bottom of the sidebar was a credit line listing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_realms as the sidebar's source.
The latest Dr Dobb's Journal (March, 2005) has a table showing various Intel CPUs with information about the number of transistors & clock speeds (p. 17). At the bottom of the table, the sources are tersely given as "Intel, Wikipedia."
I wonder if this would meet satisfy some contributors to Wikipedia as a adequate citation of source.
Geoff
And another one. Michael Snow reports in today's Signpost that an error in The Washington Post was traced back to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-02-14/Misinfo...
This again underlines the importance of checking facts and citing sources (though mind you, The Washington Post should have done the same), and the need for NPOV, cite sources, and disputed templates to be on articles, not on talk pages, so that readers are warned.
Sarah
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 17:59:40 -0800 (PST), Geoff Burling
The latest Dr Dobb's Journal (March, 2005) has a table showing various Intel CPUs with information about the number of transistors & clock speeds (p. 17). At the bottom of the table, the sources are tersely given as "Intel, Wikipedia."
I wonder if this would meet satisfy some contributors to Wikipedia as a adequate citation of source.
Geoff
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
There is a delay, which is part of the setup.
Fred
From: AndyL andyl2004@sympatico.ca Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:18:46 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Software glitch?
I've noticed today that with a few articles I've edited it appears when I check back that my edits haven't been implemented (but in fact they have). I've also seen a few other complaints on talk pages about edits and comments being "erased" though it seems that, in fact, this hasn't happened, it's just that the editor in question cannot see their own edits.
Is there some sort of glitch in the software when it comes to "updating" articles or to the ability of some accounts to "see" updated articles?
Andy
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
--- BJ�rn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
I totally accept that some images are to gross for Wikipedia to show. Like the rumoured goatsex one. But removing images because some Wikipedia editors think it is porn is unacceptable.
Not a rumor, its here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Goatse_screenshot.jpg
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Puddl Duk said:
--- BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
I totally accept that some images are to gross for Wikipedia to show. Like the rumoured goatsex one. But removing images because some Wikipedia editors think it is porn is unacceptable.
Not a rumor, its here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Goatse_screenshot.jpg
The thing that convinced me to vote inline on the Goatse poll was seeing the screenshot on Alexa.
Puddl Duk wrote:
Christiaan Briggs christiaan@last-straw.net wrote:
What I would find most interesting in such debates would be statistics allowing us to analyse any systemic bias. Unfortunately we don't have the data to carry out such analysis.
I would be interested in these statistics too. I'll bet the supporters of these images have a systemic bias along the lines of; male, adolescent or college age, no children.
Who knows, we don't have the data.
Christiaan, you have been slapping lables on people who don't vote your way with the zeal and relish of a [[Fire and brimstone]] fundamentalist; "...the prude crusaders", "...puritan cultural POV.." (see the vote pages). I don't appreciate being labled as such.
Well that's my point of view. You're welcome to argue to the contrary.
Nobody likes censorship. But we always need editorial judgement. If we don't keep our own house, we risk far greater censorship by others (schools, work places, etc).
I would rather see a technical solution to this.
Christiaan