On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: He did use the royal "we" here, I think we can make the assumption that this is the case. You have to admit that some of the cartoons on that page are a tad on the offensive side. The one where Sharon is kissing Hitler, or where he is labeled "the anti christ", seem to me to be the two worst offenders. The images where Bush and Sharon are portrayed as being terrorists or gangsters aren't as bad, in my opinion. Maybe it's time for a serious talk about our diverse groups of people, and what kinds of steps are needed to ensure that we can all continue to work together. This isn't the first time that a particular community has taken offense to images hosted on commons, and it likely isn't going to be the last time either. --Andrew Whitworth

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: I'm sure if he.wikipedia has stopped linking to all commons images entirely that there has been some general agreement on the issue. You don't delete links to hundreds or even thousands of images if you are working alone. At the very least, you would need a few people deleting image links, and the rest of the community to acquiesce to it. I would be interested to see if we could get some kind of statistic as to how many images from commons actually are being linked to from that project. If the number is zero or nearly zero, we can assume the whole community is in general agreement here. This is one of those issues where no matter what you do you are walking into a snake pit. Opening or reopening a discussion probably won't accomplish anything in the long-term, no matter how much we wish it would. The fact is that we are truly a global organization, and if we want to get lots of diverse people to work together, eventually we are going to need to start making some concessions, or else some people just aren't going to be made to feel welcome here. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. --Andrew Whitworth

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 2:51 PM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: Well, numbers never lie. It still may be worth keeping an eye on, because if the boycott just started today, those images could all disappear within the next few days. Barring that, you're right that it's probably not a community thing. --Andrew Whitworth

This reeks of the petition to remove the pictures of Muhammad from Commons, except now with another ethnic group/religion offended. On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 2:58 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

We are not asking to remove the images from Commons, but to remove them from such galleries. How can we refer our readers to "Pictures of Ariel Sharon" when such pictures are displayed in the page? We are not talking of Ariel Sharon's images only, this is only an example. Also, this regards racist pictures of all nations, not only Jewish. Furthermore, the boycott refers to the galleries themselves, not ALL pictures of Commons. That would just be impractical. Are you familiar with the {{Commons}} template? That link will be removed from all articles that include racist pictures. 2008/3/5, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>om>:

The Hebrew Wikipedia community. The discussion is still active, but several users think this is the correct way to deal with these pictures being displayed in the wrong place. We don't want to expose our readers to such images, unless they are relevant, i.e. articles about racism etc. Please understand why the link "more images and media about Ariel Sharon: <link to Ariel Sharon Commons>" and others are removed: they include racist pictures that should not be there. These pictures should be limited to categories and galleries such as "Racism" and "Political statements", not in personality galleries. 2008/3/5, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

On 05/03/2008, Yoni Weiden &lt;yonidebest(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Since none of these pictures are racist (see Mark's post), the only motivation to boycott Commons for including these images in galleries is political. When did it become he.wikipedia's job to protect the interests of Israel or Ariel Sharon? Not per Commons policy. We have no policy suggesting galleries should reflect an individual or an organisation favourably. The policy at the moment is to include any relevant media in galleries and to give a sample of the media relating to something. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

On 09/03/2008, Ian A Holton &lt;poeloq(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Deciding which images are politically controversial seems quite vague and subjective to me. I don't think it would be possible to fairly carry this out and would give religious/political partisans a lot of power. A lot of images will be controversial to some: images displaying any human flesh at all, images which do not deal with [religious figure] in a way the religion would like, images which do not deal with [political figure] in a way the religion would like. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

Yoni Weiden ha scritto: You still haven't answered what you mean by we... Marco

We = the Hebrew Wikipedia community. I had already answered this before. 2008/3/5, Marco Chiesa &lt;chiesa.marco(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

Robert Rohde wrote: Some galleries are differentiated by different types of content, though; the bigger ones are generally more differentiated. I could imagine an Ariel Sharon page being organized such that "photographs" and "critical cartoons" are in different sections, for example. -Mark

Yoni Weiden wrote: How about "parodies of Ariel Sharon?" I'm sure that the directly offended people will point those others out. Still let's not mix up racist cartoons with political cartoons about a public individual who was no stranger to controversy. Ec

I'd say they're extremely offensive - that's the point of them. However, having them on commons in no way endorses the message of the artist, they are there so they can be used in academic, neutral discussion of the issues. I would completely understand (although, not agree with it) if the Hebrew wiki decided not to use those particular images on the grounds of them being offensive. That is, however, quite a different thing to boycotting commons altogether which only goes to hurt the Hebrew wiki (there may be a few images that will not be uploaded to commons by users of the Hebrew wiki that would have been otherwise, but that's a very minor loss compared to the loss to the Hebrew wiki). Of course, at the moment, all the evidence points to this being one person's crusade and not a genuine consensus of the Hebrew community, so it's a moot point.

What nobody has asked is whether these offensive cartoons on Commons are used anywhere on any project and if so where. If any of them are not used, they could be deleted. On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 09:12:23PM +0100, teun spaans wrote: -- Dr Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au Post: 626 Melbourne Road, Spotswood, VIC 3015, Australia. Phone 03-93992847.

Brian (and someone else, correct me if I'm wrong) but Commons is its own project - i.e. images on Commons are not hosted solely for the purpose of use on other projects, but for the purpose of aggregating as many free potentially useful images as possible. Its somewhat routine, I think, for Commons images to not be in use on any particular project at a given time. I don't think this leads to them being deleted, as the orphan principle doesn't apply. This is just what I remember, someone else may tell me that I am totally wrong. Nathan

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 11:36:48PM +0000, David Gerard wrote: The main ambit is to service other projects, so if these images are used on other projects, then they should stay. However, if they are not used, I see no reason to keep them as they offensive. Of course, we would not go through Commons deleting all unused images. Brian. -- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 05:47:44PM -0800, Robert Rohde wrote: Thanks. I had not seen it and it is indeed interesting. However, it does not address the point I made. I have no question about keeping imgaes if they are used on any Wikimedia Project. I just see no reason to keep offensive images if they are not used. I still do not know whether the images in question are used anywhere. Brian. -- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Brian Salter-Duke &lt;b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au&gt; wrote: "Offensive" images (which is in itself a subjective judgment) should absolutely not be purged simply due to disuse. The only images for which that should even be considered are those which could never have any possible educational value. Really, there are a pretty small number of images in the world that would ever fit that description. These images could clearly have educational value in material regarding, for example, opposition to Israel or its policies, opposition to Sharon himself, amateur political cartoons, political activism, or probably other areas. This is true not only of Wikipedia articles on such subjects, but Wikiversity courses, Wikibooks books, so on, so on.... The aim of Commons is to collect potentially educational free media. It is explicitly not to avoid offending anyone, as such media will almost inevitably offend someone. This media is freely licensed and potentially useful in educational material. Those, and only those, should be Commons' inclusion criteria. As to the above claims that the images are "racist", I see no racism. Certainly material that might be offensive, but "offends me" is not the same as "racist". -- Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 10:55 PM, Brian Salter-Duke &lt;b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au&gt; wrote: What about future projects that may want to include them? Can you predict the future? Bryan