Hi all,
I saw this news item today;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8061979.stm
and felt that it was tangentially related to the discussions on this list concerning sexual content on wikimedia - it's prompted me to make this reply anywhoo (both the story and the comments are worth reading, and I feel they deal with the 'baby' and 'bathwater' aspects reasonably well).
In a bid to avoid Birgitte's ignore list (the ignominy ! ;-) I thought I'd respond to a few further comments and detail my proposals / reasoning for good ways forward;
( see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content for details on my proposals )
Firstly, the issue of whether or not Wikimedia should try and meet the needs of a market, for example schools, who prefer to not display images of sexual activity, for me is a somewhat moot - the issue is more that wikimedia's policies in this area are not the result of careful thought, we're really more just ended up in the status quo. It seems sensible to me to closely examine whether or not we like that status quo, and whether or not there are policies and practicies on various projects which should be improved. I think we're doing some things a bit wrong, and should want to improve, as oppose to inviting someone else to do them better. Perhaps my slightly dull, but canonical, example of this is that I don't think it's necessary for commons to host pictures of topless women, taken at the beach, without their permission - this sort of user genearted content is a net detriment to the project in my view. I'd be interested to hear if anyone disputes this specific asasertion.
My 'proposal 1' is that sexual content be restricted from userspace - I concur with Jimbo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=pre...) that an image of shaven genitalia is inappropriate on a userpage
My 'proposal 2' in the linked page is broadly synonymous with the technical implementation discussed by Brion previously - the addition of some sort of soft 'opt in' / age verification requirement seems a bit of a no-brainer to me - I had an interesting chat recently with someone who was insistent that the lack of such means Wikimedia is technically breaking UK and Australian law - I have no idea as to the veracity of this (or whether it matters!) - but am interested in the ideas and opinions of those more cluey in this area.
My 'proposal 3' suggests that we need to apply more rigour in checking the model releases and licensing - basically we're just too easy to game at the moment, and various mischievous souls have delighted in leading various communities up garden paths in the past - what's interesting is some community's willingness to be somewhat complicit in this process (the 'we must assume good faith, so yeah - this image is clearly fine' problem - the burden of evidence is all wrong in my book).
Those antipodeans who've heard be chat about this at Wiki Wed. here in Sydney may be interested to hear that there is some follow up interest in this topic in general, and I may be boring more folk on this subject with a nattily written post on a Fairfax blog - I'm particularly keen at the moment to try and discern whether or not it's possible to move forward in any way on this issue, or whether or not we're sort of stuck in the bed we've made to date.... all thoughts and ideas most welcome... :-)
cheers,
Peter PM.