[Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically
> block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article
> pages?  Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are
> relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume
> there are some exceptions).

A good number of the deleted images were in use... so I don't quite
know about that, but lets assume it to be true.


> Images that were just "dumped" to Commons
> without being associated with any particular article would still be
> available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a
> particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous
> porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who
> chose this option.
>
> Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd
> share it.

It has an enormously cute strawman answer:  If you don't want to see
images which aren't used inline in another wiki, don't look at commons
at all!   By definition any image in use in a Wikipedia is available
outside of commons. :)


Don't forget that a major reason that people look at commons is
because Wikipedia articles will usually only have a few illustrations,
for editorial/flow reasons.  If you're mostly interested in visual
details about the subject of your interest you'll follow the commons
link from the Wikipedia article.   ... but in that case your suggested
image hiding wouldn't be helpful.