G'day all,
This is a sort of 'essay spam' I guess, so for those aspects of this post, I
apologise! I've also been criticised on some Wikimedia projects for proposing
policy <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content>, flooding
and generally getting a bit boring about this issue, so I hope you'll
forgive me one post to this list, on this issue.
I believe Wikimedia is currently behaving rather irresponsibly in this area,
and believe that, for various reasons, a calm examination of the issues is
difficult. I have written a rather light-hearted, though serious minded and
'not safe for work' essay about this on the english wikipedia
here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/Let%27s_talk_about…
but would like to specifically raise the following points which
represent
my perspective;
- Wikimedia should not be censored at all - Legal images and media of all
types should be freely available to use, and re-use.
- In some contexts, such as sexual content, it is desirable to be
rigourous in confirming factors such as the subject's age, and 'release'
or
permission - it is this area which is lacking a bit at the moment.
I'd like to illustrate by drawing your attention to two images currently
being discussed on the 'Commons' project;
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Topless_Barcelona.jpg and
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:That%27s_why_my_mom_always_told_me_t…
It's my belief that hosting these images without the subject's permission
shifts the balance of utility vs. potential for harm towards recommending
the images be deleted. I'd love to hear your thoughts :-)
cheers,
Peter
PM.
