[Foundation-l] video presentation on explicit images on WMF projects

[Marcus Buck]

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