Earlier: "...I think we should just use common sense. In all honesty,

I think that we should allow most non threatening materials which would not spark largescale anger - don't forget the commons motto which if I remember is something like "a database of freely usable media files - not a database of educational

Materials"..."

Peter Blaise responds: Great advice, but "common" is such an uncommon thing! Especially in the "Commons"!

The reference to things "common" for me is based on the US Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Amendments, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and so on.

What's "common" mean to you?

"Non threatening" and "not spark large scale anger" have never been criteria in any of my "common sense" references. I think of the struggles to garner religious and personal freedoms, children's rights, women's rights, the rights of people of color, the rights of people with disabilities, abandoning caste systems ... all these come about through much threatening and sparking large scale anger, right?

Also, on the Internet, ONE single, solo person can dominate a group, good or bad, and "look" like a "large scale" situation, so the term "large scale" is almost impossible to accurately and unambiguously quantify, and base policy on, even though it sounds nice. It even smacks of "appeasing the bully" in trying to placate someone's manifest anger.

I don't think anger's a good or bad thing. It's just part and parcel of some people's gyrations, thought process, and sharing, and is part of the flow of things. After all, it's only a mailing list, and these are only words! Anger is in the eye of the beholder, right? ARGH!

Is my writing "ARGH" anger, or frustration, or irony, or submission, or ridicule, or teasing ... or what? It's just words. It doesn't matter. Go with the flow!

Same with pictures. It's just pictures. And words. Read 'em. Or not. Respond. Or not. Move on. Or not. I think that's all I'm encouraging the originator of this thread (copied below), to do. Those cartoons? Read 'em (or not) just like the rest of us, and move on (or not). Vivisecting political cartoons have been around since politicians have been around.

Earlier: "... [photo Gallery page] ... in commons includes ...

cartoons [presumably that express a point of view] ... Commons does not have a NPOV policy ..."

Peter Blaise responds: I have another observation: what are "Galleries" for in the first place? Shouldn't the Commons be the one place where Categories themselves reign supreme? If I want to find all resources in Commons on any topic, such as "Ariel Sharon", why have a hand-selected Gallery of not all Commons resources, when an all inclusive search by Category would be a more honest reflection of the true Commons contents? Sadly, those cartoons are not even objectively categorized by content. They appear to have been assessed by type over content: Category:Caricatures of ...

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Caricatures_of_Ariel_Sharon

So, although the intention of the original poster in this thread was to filter Commons contents by their own criteria, I see it has revealed that there are already too many filters on the Commons, and the "Categories" feature us waay underutilized. I think Categories should be expanded to include anything salient and relevant that EXIF and IPTC Metadata would include.