Marcus Buck wrote:
From what I understood the image filter will not have subjective criteria like "a little offensive", "very offensive", "pornography", but neutrally decidable criteria like "depicts nude female breasts", "depicts the face of Muhammad", "depicts mutilated dead body".
The WMF outline cites "5–10 categories," with "sexual imagery" and "violent imagery" as examples: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/en
As Tobias Oelgarte noted, even with the type of specificity to which you refer, the omission of countless widespread objections (a non-neutral, discriminatory practice) would be unavoidable. Who's going to analyze millions of images (with thousands more uploaded every day) to tag the ones containing unveiled women?
Tobias also pointed out that even if we _were_ to include every widespread objection, the resultant quantity of filter categories would be unmanageable.
As David Gerard noted, terms like "mutilated" are highly subjective. At what level of injury does a murder victim qualify? Fae mentioned ancient Egyptian mummies. Do they count?
Does an autopsy constitute "mutilation"? Is a dead man's circumcised penis "mutilated"? (Many people would argue that it is.)
Do non-photographic images qualify? If so, this article contains several images that arguably should be filtered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_the_Cross
Speaking of artwork, Fae mentioned the depictions of "nude female breasts" contained therein. Do those count? What about photographs of breasts taken in medical contexts? Are those equivalent to those taken in sexual contexts? If not, how do we define a "sexual context"?
Do you foresee clear consensus in these areas?
This is what Fred Bauder means when he notes that "some depictions of such things are offensive or pornographic and some not at all." But this is entirely subjective. We can expect endless debates on these subjects and countless others (and probably tag wars as well).
Conversely, the alternative image filter implementation on which I've harped would enable readers to decide for themselves on an individual, case-by-case basis: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Image_filter_referendum/en/Categories#ge... or http://goo.gl/t6ly5
David Levy