G'day all, I continue to have concerns related to the growing number of explicit images on WMF projects (largely commons) - but rather than banging on with dull mailing list posts which gaurantee a chorus of groans, I'm trying to be a bit less dull, and have made a short video presentation. It's my intention to work on this with a few like minded wiki volunteers, and probably then make a sort of alternate version for youtube etc. to see what the general feeling is out there.... what I'd really like is for the foundation to acknowledge that this is an issue where some regulation may be necessary (or indeed, where the discussion of potential benefits of some regulation is even conceivable) - I hope the board, or the advisory board, might also be interested in offering some thoughts / recommendations too. I've used a selection of explicit images from Commons, so please only click through if you're over the age of majority; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/WikiPr0n ps. I'm also particularly interested if anyone can point me to where 'section 2257' (record keeping) issues may have previously been discussed - is it the current foundation position that section 230 acts as an exemption to these requirements? best, Peter, PM.
Were we to ever become unable to host these images in the US, we should considering moving to some country where it would be possible. That's how strongly we ought to feel about the principle.
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor would we. If people want to take our material out of our encyclopedic content and turn it into sexually-focused presentations, that is their look-out.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 1:05 AM, private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com wrote:
G'day all, I continue to have concerns related to the growing number of explicit images on WMF projects (largely commons) - but rather than banging on with dull mailing list posts which gaurantee a chorus of groans, I'm trying to be a bit less dull, and have made a short video presentation. It's my intention to work on this with a few like minded wiki volunteers, and probably then make a sort of alternate version for youtube etc. to see what the general feeling is out there.... what I'd really like is for the foundation to acknowledge that this is an issue where some regulation may be necessary (or indeed, where the discussion of potential benefits of some regulation is even conceivable) - I hope the board, or the advisory board, might also be interested in offering some thoughts / recommendations too. I've used a selection of explicit images from Commons, so please only click through if you're over the age of majority; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/WikiPr0n ps. I'm also particularly interested if anyone can point me to where 'section 2257' (record keeping) issues may have previously been discussed - is it the current foundation position that section 230 acts as an exemption to these requirements? best, Peter, PM. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2010/1/14 David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor would we. If people want to take our material out of our encyclopedic content and turn it into sexually-focused presentations, that is their look-out.
Indeed. The video basically comes across as a threat to try to drum up a moral panic against Wikimedia.
- d.
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On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, David Gerard wrote:
2010/1/14 David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor would we. If people want to take our material out of our encyclopedic content and turn it into sexually-focused presentations, that is their look-out.
Indeed. The video basically comes across as a threat to try to drum up a moral panic against Wikimedia.
- d.
That's because it is exactly that.
- -Mike
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 3:19 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor would we. If people want to take our material out of our encyclopedic content and turn it into sexually-focused presentations, that is their look-out.
Indeed. The video basically comes across as a threat to try to drum up a moral panic against Wikimedia.
I don't see it that way at all. The narration was calm and unsensational and a gentle pan across an image can hardly said to be grossly misrepresentative either.
As for taking the images out of context of articles; well as they may be viewed on Commons with no context I don't see that as a valid point.
Don't misunderstand me, I think our articles on sexual organs should have a photo and Commons is our repository for such. But I was somewhat taken aback by a few of the pics in that video... are we ever going to have an article called "gay facial"?
Дана Monday 18 January 2010 16:33:00 Bod Notbod написа:
somewhat taken aback by a few of the pics in that video... are we ever going to have an article called "gay facial"?
Are you saying that you will be surprised if you find out that we have one?
On Jan 18, 2010, at 10:25 AM, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
Are you saying that you will be surprised if you find out that we have one?
I'm mostly surprised that we DON'T.
____________________ Philippe Beaudette Facilitator, Strategy Project Wikimedia Foundation
philippe@wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 4:25 PM, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.rs wrote:
somewhat taken aback by a few of the pics in that video... are we ever going to have an article called "gay facial"?
Are you saying that you will be surprised if you find out that we have one?
Heh, after I pressed 'send' I thought, "I'll have a link in my inbox in under 5 minutes".
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 8:59 PM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote: <snip>
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor would we. If people want to take our material out of our encyclopedic content and turn it into sexually-focused presentations, that is their look-out.
What if they aren't used in an encyclopedic context?
PM says he highlighted 17 images [1].
Assuming Commons "Global File Links" is accurate then these images appear on 27 content pages in Wikipedias and Wikibooks (not counting User and Talk pages, etc.). However, two of the images account for 16 of the uses, and 10 of the 17 images are not used on any project at all. This is of course a largely anecdotal sample (and there is no reason to assume that PM's set is random), but my personal impression has been similar. It seems to like we have seen a rise in unused sexual imagery being stored at Commons.
I'll happily defend the usefulness of sexual imagery in many of the places where it is used, but there are downsides to allowing such collections grow far beyond the applications we have for them.
-Robert Rohde
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/ImagesUsedInVideoPresentati...
Explicit images don't need to be used in an "encyclopedic" context (Wikimedia is more than just an encyclopedia). They just have to be _potentially_ useful in any Wikimedia project context (that's the narrow, utilitaristic view on Commons) or in any possible educative context (that's the more broad view on Commons, that views Commons as a project on it's own instead of a auxiliary project). For almost any picture it's possible to construct some example cases where the image could serve a demonstrational purpose even if the quality is low and similar images are available abundantly on Commons. We have lot's of low quality penis self-shoots? Lot's of material to illustrate the "bad examples" section of the Wikibooks guide "How to Present Yourself Favorably in Adult Forum Profiles"!
So we shouldn't think about the question "How can we reduce the amount of material". From the previous e-mails by private musings I got the impression that he is mainly concerned about the fact that there is no way to control the display of explicit images on a personal level. Even if somebody accepts that others want to see the images and if he just wants to have a method to get rid of them for him personally, there is no way to achieve this except for "don't click on Wikimedia links or at least think twice whether it could contain explicit images". And I am with private musings on this. I for myself have no interest to exclude explicit images, but it means improved "freedom" for others if we provide a method to allow excluding explicit content. A template at Commons like "{{explicit content|oral intercourse|penis|breasts}}" stating the explicit contents visible in the image would be an easy starting point. Let the template add some invisible HTML divs, provide some Javascript to evaluate the divs and make it a gadget. Then everybody will be able to exclude the personally unwanted content. If a school wants to exclude explicit images, they switch on the gadget by default. It's at least better than having Wikipedia blocked cause the content cannot be controlled. That way "moral panics" would be impossible cause anything immoral can be controlled.
One other thing that as a side effect could reduce the amount of explicit material is to introduce a more professional release procedure. If we'd require proper USC 2257 releases for explicit content, that would improve our legal position and it would automatically lead to less anonymous low quality uploads. That's something I would support.
Marcus Buck User:Slomox
Hello!
It is clear that much of sex-related multimedia stored in our project is of a very low quality, not meeting our requirements and needs. Often, it doesn't provide what we are looking for - high quality information.
I propose to start a project which would encourage, by a form of contest and rewards, high quality (that means technical quality, usefulness for education, aesthetic value etc...) multimedia which could be used in our projects. Such multimedia can easily replace current low quality content. Once we will have multimedia excellently covering something particular, we can easily reject anything else trying to cover the same. And nobody could blame us for hosting bad images anymore.
I understand that some people can say "we don't support porn" now. But this won't be porn but information! Our projects must cover also sex-related matters. We have to look for high quality multimedia for this area of knowledge as well as for others. There are projects supporting taking photographs of municipalities etc... Why not to use similar ways for improving this?
I don't propose intentionally how such a project should decide what exactly the multimedia in the contest should depict nor how exactly the contest should be arranged. I feel this should be defined by a broader community. I only propose to use a new internet domain for this purpose in order to keep not yet chosen materials out of our projects until they are awarded.
Don't forget that sex-related articles are the most viewed ones in Wikipedia. We need the high quality content in this field too, not to wait until somebody uploads something which could be useful. Also a license and personal rights are quite often an issue for sex-related multimedia. All this can be solved and we could obtain the best sex-related multimedia among all encyclopedias.
Best regards, Jiri
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 8:59 PM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor would we. If people want to take our material out of our encyclopedic content and turn it into sexually-focused presentations, that is their look-out.
What if they aren't used in an encyclopedic context?
PM says he highlighted 17 images [1].
Assuming Commons "Global File Links" is accurate then these images appear on 27 content pages in Wikipedias and Wikibooks (not counting User and Talk pages, etc.). However, two of the images account for 16 of the uses, and 10 of the 17 images are not used on any project at all. This is of course a largely anecdotal sample (and there is no reason to assume that PM's set is random), but my personal impression has been similar. It seems to like we have seen a rise in unused sexual imagery being stored at Commons.
I'll happily defend the usefulness of sexual imagery in many of the places where it is used, but there are downsides to allowing such collections grow far beyond the applications we have for them.
-Robert Rohde
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/ImagesUsedInVideoPresentati...
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I think this is a great idea actually. Probably a good place to start would be the WikiProject: Sex page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sexology_and_sexuality
Commons would probably be (or should be) interested as well.
Cheers DM
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 1:39 PM, Jiří Hofman hofmanj@aldebaran.cz wrote:
Hello!
It is clear that much of sex-related multimedia stored in our project is of a very low quality, not meeting our requirements and needs. Often, it doesn't provide what we are looking for - high quality information.
I propose to start a project which would encourage, by a form of contest and rewards, high quality (that means technical quality, usefulness for education, aesthetic value etc...) multimedia which could be used in our projects. Such multimedia can easily replace current low quality content. Once we will have multimedia excellently covering something particular, we can easily reject anything else trying to cover the same. And nobody could blame us for hosting bad images anymore.
I understand that some people can say "we don't support porn" now. But this won't be porn but information! Our projects must cover also sex-related matters. We have to look for high quality multimedia for this area of knowledge as well as for others. There are projects supporting taking photographs of municipalities etc... Why not to use similar ways for improving this?
I don't propose intentionally how such a project should decide what exactly the multimedia in the contest should depict nor how exactly the contest should be arranged. I feel this should be defined by a broader community. I only propose to use a new internet domain for this purpose in order to keep not yet chosen materials out of our projects until they are awarded.
Don't forget that sex-related articles are the most viewed ones in Wikipedia. We need the high quality content in this field too, not to wait until somebody uploads something which could be useful. Also a license and personal rights are quite often an issue for sex-related multimedia. All this can be solved and we could obtain the best sex-related multimedia among all encyclopedias.
Best regards, Jiri
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 8:59 PM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com
wrote:
<snip>
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor would we. If people want to take our material out of our encyclopedic content and turn it into sexually-focused presentations, that is their look-out.
What if they aren't used in an encyclopedic context?
PM says he highlighted 17 images [1].
Assuming Commons "Global File Links" is accurate then these images appear on 27 content pages in Wikipedias and Wikibooks (not counting User and Talk pages, etc.). However, two of the images account for 16 of the uses, and 10 of the 17 images are not used on any project at all. This is of course a largely anecdotal sample (and there is no reason to assume that PM's set is random), but my personal impression has been similar. It seems to like we have seen a rise in unused sexual imagery being stored at Commons.
I'll happily defend the usefulness of sexual imagery in many of the places where it is used, but there are downsides to allowing such collections grow far beyond the applications we have for them.
-Robert Rohde
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/ImagesUsedInVideoPresentati...
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2010/1/14 Jiří Hofman hofmanj@aldebaran.cz:
It is clear that much of sex-related multimedia stored in our project is of a very low quality, not meeting our requirements and needs. Often, it doesn't provide what we are looking for - high quality information.
That isn't clear to me. Could you elaborate?
2010/1/14 Jiří Hofman hofmanj@aldebaran.cz:
It is clear that much of sex-related multimedia stored in our project is of a very low quality, not meeting our requirements and needs. Often, it doesn't provide what we are looking for - high quality information.
That isn't clear to me. Could you elaborate?
Originally, I was pretty angry with a mail by David Goodman. The video, he linked to, is a disgusting manipulation. I went through images listed as sources for the video. And I had to admit that at least some of those should not be a part of our projects. Not because they are depicting sex-related things and activities but because they are of quality which is would be unacceptable in many other fields.
Just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_intercourse . You will see there is no really high quality image of human sexual intercourse. Strange for an encyclopedy which wants to be the best in the world. Or go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sex_positions , one of the most viewed pages of English Wikipedia. Do you think the images there are of excellent quality? I don't.
Jiri
2010/1/14 Jiří Hofman hofmanj@aldebaran.cz:
Just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_intercourse . You will see there is no really high quality image of human sexual intercourse.
File:Housefly mating.jpg is a featured image.
Or go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sex_positions , one of the most viewed pages of English Wikipedia. Do you think the images there are of excellent quality? I don't.
I think they have a certain innocent charm. They look like pictures drawn by an illiterate who needed a hobby whilst on remand. And why not? People *should* have a hobby.
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
Or go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sex_positions , one of the most viewed pages of English Wikipedia. Do you think the images there are of excellent quality? I don't.
I think they have a certain innocent charm. They look like pictures drawn by an illiterate who needed a hobby whilst on remand. And why not? People *should* have a hobby.
IIRC those images were drawn for that article by a Wikipedian. They are accurate depictions of the acts in question and under a free license. I don't understand how a perfectly composed, high resolution photo would add relevant information to the diagrams.
Дана Thursday 14 January 2010 05:59:39 David Goodman написа:
As for the link, showing these in greatly enlarged versions, without the context of the articles in which they are used, is setting up a strong bias. We've never engaged in that use of the material, nor
http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikimedia/commons/
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 1:05 AM, private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com
wrote:
G'day all, I continue to have concerns related to the growing number of explicit images on WMF projects (largely commons) - but rather than banging on with dull mailing list posts which gaurantee a chorus of groans, I'm trying to be a bit less dull, and have made a short video presentation. It's my intention to work on this with a few like minded wiki volunteers, and probably then make a sort of alternate version for youtube etc. to see what the general feeling is out there.... what I'd really like is for the foundation to acknowledge that this is an issue where some regulation may be necessary (or indeed, where the discussion of potential benefits of some regulation is even conceivable) - I hope the board, or the advisory board, might also be interested in offering some thoughts / recommendations too. I've used a selection of explicit images from Commons, so please only click through if you're over the age of majority; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/WikiPr0n ps. I'm also particularly interested if anyone can point me to where 'section 2257' (record keeping) issues may have previously been discussed
- is it the current foundation position that section 230 acts as an
exemption to these requirements?
2010/1/13 private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com:
G'day all, I continue to have concerns related to the growing number of explicit images on WMF projects (largely commons) - but rather than banging on with dull mailing list posts which gaurantee a chorus of groans, I'm trying to be a bit less dull, and have made a short video presentation. It's my intention to work on this with a few like minded wiki volunteers, and probably then make a sort of alternate version for youtube etc. to see what the general feeling is out there.... what I'd really like is for the foundation to acknowledge that this is an issue where some regulation may be necessary (or indeed, where the discussion of potential benefits of some regulation is even conceivable) - I hope the board, or the advisory board, might also be interested in offering some thoughts / recommendations too. I've used a selection of explicit images from Commons, so please only click through if you're over the age of majority; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/WikiPr0n ps. I'm also particularly interested if anyone can point me to where 'section 2257' (record keeping) issues may have previously been discussed - is it the current foundation position that section 230 acts as an exemption to these requirements?
Come on, even *I* would have given up on this argument by now... you're not going to win... If you think there are legal concerns, email Mike Godwin.
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2010/1/13 private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com:
G'day all, I continue to have concerns related to the growing number of explicit images on WMF projects (largely commons) - but rather than banging on with dull mailing list posts which gaurantee a chorus of groans, I'm trying to be a bit less dull, and have made a short video presentation. It's my intention to work on this with a few like minded wiki volunteers, and probably then make a sort of alternate version for youtube etc. to see what the general feeling is out there.... what I'd really like is for the foundation to acknowledge that this is an issue where some regulation may be necessary (or indeed, where the discussion of potential benefits of some regulation is even conceivable) - I hope the board, or the advisory board, might also be interested in offering some thoughts / recommendations too. I've used a selection of explicit images from Commons, so please only click through if you're over the age of majority; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Privatemusings/WikiPr0n ps. I'm also particularly interested if anyone can point me to where 'section 2257' (record keeping) issues may have previously been discussed - is it the current foundation position that section 230 acts as an exemption to these requirements?
Come on, even *I* would have given up on this argument by now... you're not going to win... If you think there are legal concerns, email Mike Godwin.
Part of the problem is that people who think they understand the whole of the argument being made actually don't. Arguments against censorship address only a part of the concerns Privatemusings and others, including myself, have expressed. PM's comment above referring to Section 2257 alludes to much of the rest of the concerns - specifically, the rights of the individuals featured in the photographs themselves. There are ~25,000 images in the Commons category of potential personality rights problems, but the Commons policy (COM:PEOPLE) essentially leaves it to the ethical discretion (and nose for appropriate sounding file names) of the uploader to manage rights issues.
Attempts to address this problem are sporadic - an example is a group of over a hundred images from a Dutch photographer with a checkered past, whose work has been largely removed from Flickr (from where it was imported to Commons). After quite a lot of debate and delay, many of these images were deleted on Commons in 2008 - but since then, many new ones have been uploaded.
To avoid the very real chance that the subjects of explicit photos are underage or have not given publishing consent, I would like to see Commons require proof of model release, and age verification, for explicit images.
Nathan
2010/1/14 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
To avoid the very real chance that the subjects of explicit photos are underage or have not given publishing consent, I would like to see Commons require proof of model release, and age verification, for explicit images.
And how exactly would they do that? Upload a picture of the model holding their passport and a sign saying "I consent to pictures of me naked to be used for any purpose" in a few dozen languages? That doesn't sound practical to me...
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2010/1/14 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
To avoid the very real chance that the subjects of explicit photos are underage or have not given publishing consent, I would like to see Commons require proof of model release, and age verification, for explicit images.
And how exactly would they do that? Upload a picture of the model holding their passport and a sign saying "I consent to pictures of me naked to be used for any purpose" in a few dozen languages? That doesn't sound practical to me...
I don't think having specific material documentation is necessarily as important as asking the questions and getting an identifiable person on the other end to assert that these issues have been considered responsibly. We accept copyright releases into OTRS that are little more than written assurances that everything is okay, and I don't see why we couldn't ask for the same thing here. And, in the unfortunate event that things aren't okay, we would be able to point a specific individual who misled us rather than simply saying that we closed our eyes and didn't care.
-Robert Rohde
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 3:01 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2010/1/14 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
To avoid the very real chance that the subjects of explicit photos are underage or have not given publishing consent, I would like to see Commons require proof of model release, and age verification, for explicit images.
And how exactly would they do that? Upload a picture of the model holding their passport and a sign saying "I consent to pictures of me naked to be used for any purpose" in a few dozen languages? That doesn't sound practical to me...
I don't see that it is that unpractical. The language barrier is the most significant problem, but model releases are routine for professional photographers. It may be more difficult for amateur uploaders, but this only applies to sexually explicit photographs and the standard of attention to the rights of subjects may be more important than the convenience of amateur photographers in this area.
Nathan
Here's another concerning aspect of management of explicit media on WMF; It's been asserted that images of a 16 year old girl masturbating have been uploaded to commons; http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice... The image in question has been deleted from commons; http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Closeup_of_female_mastur... ..and I think it's also been oversighted. Lar, a commons oversighter, muses over on wikipedia review whether or not continuing to fight fires caused by systemic problems is the right thing to do; http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=28221&view=findpos... The general issue is of course important, but I hope in the short term, that the image in question can be properly deleted - restricting it to oversighters only remains, in my view, likely to be illegal - it really would be best for that image to be removed by a dev. Maybe this is underway as I type? Hope so! best, Peter, PM. On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 7:43 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 3:01 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2010/1/14 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
To avoid the very real chance that the subjects of explicit photos are underage or have not given publishing consent, I would like to see Commons require proof of model release, and age verification, for explicit images.
And how exactly would they do that? Upload a picture of the model holding their passport and a sign saying "I consent to pictures of me naked to be used for any purpose" in a few dozen languages? That doesn't sound practical to me...
I don't see that it is that unpractical. The language barrier is the most significant problem, but model releases are routine for professional photographers. It may be more difficult for amateur uploaders, but this only applies to sexually explicit photographs and the standard of attention to the rights of subjects may be more important than the convenience of amateur photographers in this area.
Nathan
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2010/1/17 private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com:
Here's another concerning aspect of management of explicit media on WMF; It's been asserted that images of a 16 year old girl masturbating have been uploaded to commons;
Whats that got to do with management? Any service that allows user uploads of images is going to get hit by such uploads from time to time.
Дана Sunday 17 January 2010 22:13:28 private musings написа:
Here's another concerning aspect of management of explicit media on WMF; It's been asserted that images of a 16 year old girl masturbating have been uploaded to commons; http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notic eboard/Incidents&oldid=338426080#User:Misty_Willows_problematic_images The image in question has been deleted from commons; http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Closeup_of_female_mastu rbation_pastel.jpg&action=edit&redlink=1 ..and I think it's also been oversighted. Lar, a commons oversighter, muses over on wikipedia review whether or not continuing to fight fires caused by systemic problems is the right thing to do; http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=28221&view=findpos... 072 The general issue is of course important, but I hope in the short term, that the image in question can be properly deleted - restricting it to oversighters only remains, in my view, likely to be illegal - it really would be best for that image to be removed by a dev. Maybe this is underway as I type? Hope so!
This is an interesting case, but I don't see what it has to do with policies on explicit images on WMF projects. Even if the policies would be changed to be the strictest possible (for example, no explicit images allowed at all), the exact same thing could happen.
I'm more raising the issue that what could be child pornography remains available to wmf volunteers with 'oversight' op.s on commons - I don't think the foundation should facilitate that, and I hope a decent enough system can be quickly implemented (it's also quite possible that there is in fact a system in place, but it's unknown to me!) for the depressingly inevitable 'next time' I'd probably go a step further and say that sub-optimal / insufficient systems for dealing with predictable problems indicate a general lack of responsible governance in this area (ie. I'm sadly not surprised that this issue occurs in this way) - but mileage inevitably varies... I'm hopeful of hearing of a strong resolution to this one imminently.
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:20 AM, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.rswrote:
Дана Sunday 17 January 2010 22:13:28 private musings написа:
Here's another concerning aspect of management of explicit media on WMF; It's been asserted that images of a 16 year old girl masturbating have
been
uploaded to commons;
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notic
eboard/Incidents&oldid=338426080#User:Misty_Willows_problematic_images The image in question has been deleted from commons;
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Closeup_of_female_mastu
rbation_pastel.jpg&action=edit&redlink=1 ..and I think it's also been oversighted. Lar, a commons oversighter, muses over on wikipedia review whether or not continuing to fight fires caused by systemic problems is
the
right thing to do;
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=28221&view=findpos...
072 The general issue is of course important, but I hope in the short
term,
that the image in question can be properly deleted - restricting it to oversighters only remains, in my view, likely to be illegal - it really would be best for that image to be removed by a dev. Maybe this is underway as I type? Hope so!
This is an interesting case, but I don't see what it has to do with policies on explicit images on WMF projects. Even if the policies would be changed to be the strictest possible (for example, no explicit images allowed at all), the exact same thing could happen.
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iirc, there is already a mediawiki capability for images to be completely removed from the servers.
I can't see this capability in the sysop tools, so maybe I only imagined it.
Is that capability still available? Which users have access to it?
If it is part of the software, I think oversighters should have access to it.
-- John Vandenberg
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:39 AM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
iirc, there is already a mediawiki capability for images to be completely removed from the servers.
I can't see this capability in the sysop tools, so maybe I only imagined it.
Is that capability still available? Which users have access to it?
If it is part of the software, I think oversighters should have access to it.
-- John Vandenberg
That was rewritten ages ago to allow the files to be kept and undeleted and need be (so in theory they are now only removed from accessible part of the software, not the file system), they would need to be kept and not destroyed if they were brought you in court/criminal proceedings because they would become evidence.
-Peachey
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:23 AM, K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au wrote:
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:39 AM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
iirc, there is already a mediawiki capability for images to be completely removed from the servers.
I can't see this capability in the sysop tools, so maybe I only imagined it.
Is that capability still available? Which users have access to it?
If it is part of the software, I think oversighters should have access to it.
That was rewritten ages ago to allow the files to be kept and undeleted and need be (so in theory they are now only removed from accessible part of the software, not the file system), they would need to be kept and not destroyed if they were brought you in court/criminal proceedings because they would become evidence.
It's possible for system administrators to delete files entirely from the servers for legal reasons, but because it is quite labour-intensive, I for one have only ever performed such a deletion when it is real child pornography (hint: a 16-year-old masturbating is not "real" child pornography, and is in fact legal, though explicit, in New South Wales, Australia).
We don't really want to be handling any more than a request or two each week/month under this system, and it's done mostly in the interest of taste – the images that I've had to delete have made me extremely uncomfortable, and deleting them is mostly about protecting innocent snooping administrators from seeing them.
If there are legal issues involved, they should be discussed directly with our General Counsel, and not speculated about by volunteers who may lack the requisite legal expertise to make a decision on the Foundation's behalf. The community should be discussing editorial and administrative reasons for dealing with these images, not legal ones.
It's possible for system administrators to delete files entirely from the servers for legal reasons, but because it is quite labour-intensive, I for one have only ever performed such a deletion when it is real child pornography (hint: a 16-year-old masturbating is not "real" child pornography, and is in fact legal, though explicit, in New South Wales, Australia).
We don't really want to be handling any more than a request or two each week/month under this system, and it's done mostly in the interest of taste – the images that I've had to delete have made me extremely uncomfortable, and deleting them is mostly about protecting innocent snooping administrators from seeing them.
If there are legal issues involved, they should be discussed directly with our General Counsel, and not speculated about by volunteers who may lack the requisite legal expertise to make a decision on the Foundation's behalf. The community should be discussing editorial and administrative reasons for dealing with these images, not legal ones.
With respect, legal issues are debated on many projects practically every day. This particular issue is no different. In some jurisdictions, just accessing such files can expose one to legal risk. While Mike is a good lawyer, he doesn't represent individual editors - and the Foundation's interests and liabilities (as a host, not a content provider) may not fully intersect with the needs of individual editors.
And in any case, permanently deleting such images (so that they can't be recovered without extraordinary effort) has its own editorial and administrative benefits.
Nathan
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 6:48 PM, Andrew Garrett agarrett@wikimedia.orgwrote:
(hint: a 16-year-old masturbating is not "real" child pornography, and is in fact legal, though explicit, in New South Wales, Australia).
Last I checked the WMF falls under US law, so you might want to read http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002256----000-.html and reconsider that comment.
Andrew Garrett wrote:
It's possible for system administrators to delete files entirely from the servers for legal reasons, but because it is quite labour-intensive, I for one have only ever performed such a deletion when it is real child pornography (hint: a 16-year-old masturbating is not "real" child pornography, and is in fact legal, though explicit, in New South Wales, Australia).
That may be true, but if the subject is or appears to be 15.5 years old instead of 16, then that would indeed count as child pornography, even in NSW, and disseminating such material would be a crime, with a maximum penalty of 10 years jail.
http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/fragview/inforce/act+40+1900+pt.3-div.15a+0+N?
It's a fine line to walk. Given the current climate you can expect a broad interpretation of "appears to be".
In any case, part of the job of a sysadmin is to help the Foundation comply with whatever local laws they wish to comply with. If Mike asked me to help him comply with a local law in Angola, I wouldn't complain that the law isn't the same in Congo or wherever I happen to be at the time, I would try to help him out. If there was some issue of conscience, I could consider resigning, but obviously that wouldn't come up if I'm being asked to remove some rubbish cameraphone home video from the deletion archive.
-- Tim Starling
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 01:00, private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com wrote:
I'm more raising the issue that what could be child pornography remains available to wmf volunteers with 'oversight' op.s on commons - I don't think
<HHOK>you wanna get the only fun from poor oversights, naughty naughty....</HHOK>
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