[Foundation-l] Sexual Content on Wikimedia

[Chad]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 6:39 PM, private musings <thepmaccount at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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_sex>-
> 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_to_cross_my_legs_when_I_wore_a_skirt.jpg
>
> 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.
>

I've always been a big proponent of using common sense,
but it seems like this no longer applies. I can arguably see
a usage for the first of the two images, but the latter holds
no educational merit whatsoever (and the page title is hardly
acceptable anyway. What happened to descriptive file
names?).

With regards to nude/erotic photos, I would implore Commons
(and other projects) adopt a policy helping in this regard. Commons
is meant to be a collection of freely-licensed media, not a dumping
ground for all media that happens to be free.

I guess to summarize: just because you can, doesn't mean you
should.

-Chad