I wish to raise an issue on this list about offensive images on an article about sexual bondage, [[Hogtie bondage]], to be specific. I don't feel I can justify spending any more time debating this sort of thing on the article discussion page (I want to do more productive things on Wikipedia, like write about cryptography), so I thought I would flag it here in this forum, and trust the outcome to normal Wikipedia processes (even if it's not the outcome I would like). I do think it needs wider attention, as editors who have such a page on their watchlists are likely to be of a certain opinion. Forgive me, though, if I start a discussion that might prove controversial and then quietly sneak off. I'm not a troll, honest!
First, I'd like to state that, in general, I support Wikipedia being explicit in its illustration where necessary. I have never had a problem with potentially-offensive photos on pages like [[penis]], [[clitoris]] and the like. If I cared enough (or if I had kids) I could filter Wikipedia myself on the client side without too much hassle.
However, to balance that, I think that content which is likely to be offensive, such as nudity, should be used only when there is a compelling case that the offensiveness is unavoidable if the article is to be illustrated properly. I would oppose photographs of nude people kissing in [[kiss]], or two nude people hugging in [[physical intimacy]], because I believe these concepts can be quite adequately illustrated without nudity. I don't suppose this is a particulary controversial line to take.
Recently, a proprietor of a bondage pornography site uploaded a number of his images to Wikipedia depicting a woman in various positions of sexual bondage, and added them as illustration to several pages, including (what has now been split off to become) [[Hogtie bondage]]. Two of these photographs used on [[Hogtie bondage]] feature a nude woman. However, I don't believe that nudity is necessary to illustrate this topic -- a hogtie is a way of tying someone up, and the subject can be nude or clothed. Therefore, I would argue that the nude images should not be used within this article.
Others disagree (see [[Talk:Hogtie bondage]] and [[Talk:Hogtie]]), and there has been a few reverts over this question (far more than a member of the Harmonious Editing Club would like to own up to -- another reason why I'll probably drop my involvement). I'd like to see what others think.
In general, I think we should be very careful when dealing with erotica within Wikipedia. The original purpose of such images is not illustration, so we need to be sure that they do indeed make for good illustration when used as such. In the hogtie case, the owner of the adult website likely had the partial motive of promoting his website (a link was included in the image description pages). And many people readily enjoy seeing titillating images in web pages, regardless of their illustrative value. So I think it's worth making sure there is a robust case for their use, given the potential for offense, because we decrease the value of Wikipedia if we are offensive without good editorial reasons.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to dare checking...
--Mgm
On 10/24/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to dare checking...
I thought I'd probably feel the same way, after Matt's description, but fortunately I am on a laptop at home, so I was able to check. The pictures seem to be be completely in order.
There are no visible advertising watermarks on the image. The uploader, sbc01, correctly licensed his photographs under the GFDL. They're were clearly created primarily for demonstration rather than erotic purposes. Unlike in pornography, the poses show the whole body from head to toe, and a wide enough area around the body to show suspension ropes and the like in detail, and the use of the face and facial expression, a primary erotic tool in pornography, is almost totally absent here--even where the face is not completely concealed behind a mask or gag.
Matt removed one photograph on grounds of nudity. The model is lying flat on her tummy, gagged, and with her limbs tightly bound behind her. She is visibly wearing thong panties, the side strap of which can be seen at her left hip. She is obviously naked from the waist up but her pose completely conceals her breasts. Her crotch is out of sight, her buttocks are concealed by her bound wrists and hands. The viewpoint is a few feet above and to her left side, and her left shoulder and head are nearest to the camera.
Although I would hesitate to call this pose decent--the model is after all semi-naked and restrained in a manner that would be humiliating and upsetting in other contexts--in my opinion this is an excellent example of how to illustrate sexual bondage play.
In another photograph, illustrating vertical hogtie, the model is suspended in a vertical posture and pictured from behind and above her left shoulder. Again the buttocks are concealed behind bound hands and wrists. The model's right breast and naked nipple are exposed in profile and if you squint a bit, or use zoom on your image viewer, I supposed you might see something that might give a particularly sensitive American Superbowl viewer a small palpitation.
On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/24/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to dare checking...
I thought I'd probably feel the same way, after Matt's description, but fortunately I am on a laptop at home, so I was able to check. The pictures seem to be be completely in order.
[snip]
Although I would hesitate to call this pose decent--the model is after all semi-naked and restrained in a manner that would be humiliating and upsetting in other contexts--in my opinion this is an excellent example of how to illustrate sexual bondage play.
There are some interesting opinions expressed in this thread (both in the emails quoted & elsewhere) that touch upon my proposal about encouraging cities and towns to use the GFDL (or CC-BY-2.0) as a pubicity tool.
First, Matt has a point that nudity is unimportant in the image to illustrate a hogtie bondage position: the focus is on how the model is dressed, not on how the model is dressed (or undressed).
Then on the Talk page, Deeceevoice makes the interesting observation that all of these images feature a woman tied up -- why isn't one of the images of a man?
And above, I have quoted Tony Sideway as saying that he finds the pictures informative, & snipped out the part where he states that a prima facia case can be made that they have been offered as properly part of the free use domain (free as in speech, not as beer).
So how do all of these affect my proposal? Let me explain:
1. One point I would like to make that I haven't seen anyone else make is that we ought to be glad that these images have been released under the GFDL: the more material we have in that category -- as long as the subject is in focus & other technical criteria are met -- the healthier our collection of free material becomes. Both we Wikipedians & our users are now free to reuse this image in any way we want, for example to illustrate articles like [[rope]], [[young female]], [[sexual domination]], or [[prisoner]].
2. We are not going to have complete -- or much -- control over images contributed. If we ask famous people for free images like sbc01 has generously granted, we are going to have to be grateful for whatever they give us; that's the nature of being a charity. For example, I would find a picture of Ann Coulter in a short skirt, holding a rifle & a picture of Michael Moore that she has obviously been using for target practice offensive, but if was released under the GFDL then it would replace all of the fair use images we currently are using. (Actually, I would find any picture of Ann Coulter offensive, but I hope I'm not the only person here that would defend the use of any image that is free over others.)
3. If a given image used to illustrate a subject is offensive or otherwise unsatisfactory, then I invite you to find or create a better one. Last I looked the image used to illustrate [[Miniskirt]] is not Featured Picture quality: it fails to capture the edginess or the sexiness that this garment evokes in the popular imagination. However, it does the job by illustrating what a miniskirt looks like -- & it is a free image. If capturing these other qualities of this garment is important, then create the image that captures these qualities & release it under GFDL. Just as I said should be done if a town releases an image that does not accurately represent the town, we are free to do in this instance.
But we should show gratitude that these donations were made.
Geoff
I looked the image used to illustrate [[Miniskirt]] is not Featured Picture quality: it fails to capture the edginess or the sexiness that this garment evokes in the popular imagination. However, it does the job by illustrating what a miniskirt looks like -- & it is a free image.
Sexiness is considered by many to be utterly intolerable. See the "discussion" about the (professional, high-quality) picture that Bomis licensed GFDL for our use in the [[Bikini]] article. It was lynched explicitly /because/ it was a good picture. The attractiveness of the model was the stated reason for deleting it.
On Oct 25, 2005, at 11:11 AM, Sean Barrett wrote:
Sexiness is considered by many to be utterly intolerable. See the "discussion" about the (professional, high-quality) picture that Bomis licensed GFDL for our use in the [[Bikini]] article. It was lynched explicitly /because/ it was a good picture. The attractiveness of the model was the stated reason for deleting it.
Every day, I start to realize the revert warriors are right, and we totally suck beyond all reason.
-Snowspinner
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Sean Barrett wrote:
I looked the image used to illustrate [[Miniskirt]] is not Featured Picture quality: it fails to capture the edginess or the sexiness that this garment evokes in the popular imagination. However, it does the job by illustrating what a miniskirt looks like -- & it is a free image.
Sexiness is considered by many to be utterly intolerable. See the "discussion" about the (professional, high-quality) picture that Bomis licensed GFDL for our use in the [[Bikini]] article. It was lynched explicitly /because/ it was a good picture. The attractiveness of the model was the stated reason for deleting it.
Oh noes! Can't possibly have anything remotely attractive! Quick, remove all the featured pictures and hit the stylesheets with an eggbeater! While we're at it, better add IE-only HTML extensions and Javascript, and re-implement the edit page in Flash.
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--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to dare checking...
The uploader declared them to be {{GFDL}}. I emailed the webmaster of the adult site in question, and got no reply -- I would imagine we would have got a prompt response if they were a copyright violation, given that they are in the business of selling these photos.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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Here we go again, will this dead bloodily beaten horse ever decompose?
First, I'd like to state that, in general, I support Wikipedia being explicit in its illustration where necessary. I have never had a problem with potentially-offensive photos on pages like [[penis]], [[clitoris]] and the like.
You have never had a problem with from an American viewpoint potentially-offensive images? OK. I have never had a problem with potentially-offensive photos (and text!) on pages like [[female]], [[hair]], [[feet]], [[homosexual]], etc... By saying that only [[penis]] and [[clitoris]] are potentially offensive but not the other examples I mentioned, you are implying that your viewpoint is the supreme one and more important than all others.
However, to balance that, I think that content which is likely to be offensive, such as nudity, should be used only when there is a compelling case that the offensiveness is unavoidable if the article is to be illustrated properly. I would oppose photographs of nude people kissing in [[kiss]], or two nude people hugging in [[physical intimacy]], because I believe these concepts can be quite adequately illustrated without nudity. I don't suppose this is a particulary
I think it is. Just because you (and you are not alone, but I bet you are not the majority either) think nudity is offensive is not a reason to exclude it. Also, nudity (or atleast very few clothes) is an important part of [[physical intimacy]] because most people are undressed when they are doing it. Woman can be quite adequately illustrated without either feet, fingers or hair. I don't think that is a reason to butcher a huge number of images in Wikipedia.
Recently, a proprietor of a bondage pornography site uploaded a number of his images to Wikipedia depicting a woman in various positions of sexual bondage, and added them as illustration to several pages, including (what has now been split off to become) [[Hogtie bondage]]. Two of these photographs used on [[Hogtie bondage]] feature a nude woman. However, I don't believe that nudity is necessary to
Once again you think. I don't know very much about [[Hogtie bondage]] (and I can't read up on it ATM, because I'm at work and I'm fully aware that Wikipedia is not work safe) but I assume that it has something to do with SEX, hasn't it?
In general, I think we should be very careful when dealing with erotica within Wikipedia. The original purpose of such images is not illustration, so we need to be sure that they do indeed make for good illustration when used as such. In the hogtie case, the owner of the adult website likely had the partial motive of promoting his website
So what? Jimbo himself has done that too. Atleast a few of the "raunchy" images on Wikipedia has a description that reads something like "(c) Bomis.inc, licensed as FDL". I don't understand the law that says that when smut-peddlers donate images it is bad, but when other corporations does it, it is good.
(a link was included in the image description pages). And many people readily enjoy seeing titillating images in web pages, regardless of their illustrative value. So I think it's worth making sure there is a robust case for their use, given the potential for offense, because we decrease the value of Wikipedia if we are offensive without good editorial reasons.
Noone has suggest that we should be offensive for no good reason. However, what has been common practice so far, is that editorial decisions and an images educational value always and unconditionally trumps (what many of us Westerners percieve as) offensiveness.
-- mvh Björn
On 24 Oct 2005, at 12:18, BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
So what? Jimbo himself has done that too. Atleast a few of the "raunchy" images on Wikipedia has a description that reads something like "(c) Bomis.inc, licensed as FDL". I don't understand the law that says that when smut-peddlers donate images it is bad, but when other corporations does it, it is good.
Thats not quite correct. There should only be one Bomis image on the site licensed under GFDL, and its not particularly "raunchy". You should delete any others you see as they are not licensed for wikipedia.
Justinc
--- BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
First, I'd like to state that, in general, I support Wikipedia being explicit in its illustration where necessary. I have never had a problem with potentially-offensive photos on pages like [[penis]], [[clitoris]] and the like.
You have never had a problem with from an American viewpoint potentially-offensive images? OK. I have never had a problem with potentially-offensive photos (and text!) on pages like [[female]], [[hair]], [[feet]], [[homosexual]], etc... By saying that only [[penis]] and [[clitoris]] are potentially offensive but not the other examples I mentioned, you are implying that your viewpoint is the supreme one and more important than all others.
I don't really understand what you're getting at here, but I'd like to point out that I'm British, not American.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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You have never had a problem with from an American viewpoint potentially-offensive images? OK. I have never had a problem with potentially-offensive photos (and text!) on pages like [[female]], [[hair]], [[feet]], [[homosexual]], etc... By saying that only [[penis]] and [[clitoris]] are potentially offensive but not the other examples I mentioned, you are implying that your viewpoint is the supreme one and more important than all others.
I don't really understand what you're getting at here, but I'd like to point out that I'm British, not American.
Sorry, that was a bone-headed slip. I think I menat to say western viewpoint. It is a very natural thing to assume that ones own values are omnipresent. We like to be around people who are similar to ourselves and therefore we by default assume that those that have different points of view are wrong. But it doesn't work on an international project like Wikipedia. I.e what you think is "potentially offensive" may be totally non-offensive to someone else. And what someone else think is "potentially offensive" may be totally non-offensive to you.
-- mvh Björn
--- BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
It is a very natural thing to assume that ones own values are omnipresent. We like to be around people who are similar to ourselves and therefore we by default assume that those that have different points of view are wrong. But it doesn't work on an international project like Wikipedia. I.e what you think is "potentially offensive" may be totally non-offensive to someone else. And what someone else think is "potentially offensive" may be totally non-offensive to you.
If I'd simply used the word "offensive", you might have a point, but I deliberately qualified it by saying "potentially-offensive" for exactly the reason you point out. I grew up outside of Europe, and I am quite aware that there are many different cultures and values that are involved in a project like Wikipedia. However, it is indisputable that nudity is a touchy issue for lots of cultures, and even more so in deliberately erotic images.
I'm not sure you understand where I'm coming from, here. I am arguing that when A) an image is used which likely to be offensive to very many readers, across many cultures and countries; and B) an alternative can be produced which is of equal illustrative value, but which mitigates the offensiveness to some degree, then we should go for the alternative. It's a clear win for the project.
As a case study, consier the following two images which could be used to illustrate the "Hogtie bondage" article (likely not work/public safe!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Model_in_classic_Hogtie.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Model_in_stringent_hogtie.jpg
The images seem virtually identical to me in terms of what they illustrate regarding the topic. However, for some reason, people have been insisting on using the unclothed version in preference to the clothed version. I would argue that that's a clear loss for the project.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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On 10/24/05, Matt R matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
As a case study, consier the following two images which could be used to illustrate the "Hogtie bondage" article (likely not work/public safe!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Model_in_classic_Hogtie.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Model_in_stringent_hogtie.jpg
The images seem virtually identical to me in terms of what they illustrate regarding the topic. However, for some reason, people have been insisting on using the unclothed version in preference to the clothed version. I would argue that that's a clear loss for the project.
Actually I think the unclothed one is nicer to look at; the clothes don't do anything for the picture.
However the two pictures aren't at all equivalent. In the "stringent hogtie" picture, the model is further restrained, for instance by extra bindings below the breasts, on the calves and on the thighs closest to the knee joint.
And although to you the clothed figure may appear more "decent", it worries me a little because of the safety aspect. The hogtie position can cause difficulty with breathing and this is not improved by the use of the further restraint below the breasts and the wearing of tight clothing. There is also in the clothed picture a suggestion that the binding may involve a ligature around the model's neck (which may be practised in extreme forms of the hogtie).
Of course Wikipedia isn't a HOW-TO guide, but it's as well to minimise the possible damage that might arise from amateurs copying the photographs.
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BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
Matt R wrote:
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
You have never had a problem with from an American viewpoint potentially-offensive images? OK. I have never had a problem with potentially-offensive photos (and text!) on pages like [[female]], [[hair]], [[feet]], [[homosexual]], etc... By saying that only [[penis]] and [[clitoris]] are potentially offensive but not the other examples I mentioned, you are implying that your viewpoint is the supreme one and more important than all others.
I don't really understand what you're getting at here, but I'd like to point out that I'm British, not American.
Sorry, that was a bone-headed slip. I think I menat to say western viewpoint.
Define western... what does that make you BTW?
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BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
Sorry, that was a bone-headed slip. I think I menat to say western viewpoint.
In this case, the western world is actually quite a bit more tolerant of such things, on average, than the non-western world. I don't think nude hogtied women would be looked on too favorably in the Muslim countries of the world, which represent a large portion of the non-western world.
-Mark
I agree w BJörn, despite the western civ gaff. I like books of reference because they allow access to the truth, rather than the censored fluff one finds in the media. If I look up Hogtie bondage, I expect to see a naked chick erotically hogtied. if I look up cryptography, I expect to find info on the latest encryption
techniques. Both subjects have those who would wish to censor them; books of reference are our strongest weapon against such types. Don't take away what makes the wikipedia good, don't become the enemy, deletionism is anti-wiki.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Matt R wrote:
However, to balance that, I think that content which is likely to be offensive, such as nudity, should be used only when there is a compelling case that the offensiveness is unavoidable if the article is to be illustrated properly. I would oppose photographs of nude people kissing in [[kiss]], or two nude people hugging in [[physical intimacy]], because I believe these concepts can be quite adequately illustrated without nudity. I don't suppose this is a particulary controversial line to take.
"Paging [[Auguste Rodin]]. M. Rodin to the white telephone, please."
-- Neil