[Foundation-l] Spectrum of views (was Re: Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening)

[Samuel Klein]

Tim, thank you for this excellent post.   A few comments:


Tim Starling writes:
> it's only the libertarians who value educational value above
> moral hazard

I don't really agree with this.  Contributors from across your
spectrum consider whether potentially-harmful information about a
person is educational enough to be in their biography.  The tension
between educational value and various hazards is something regularly
assessed by editors.

It's just that in areas of contentious sexual, religious, racist, or
violent content, there is a wide variation in assessment of moral
hazard.

In areas of an admittedly-embarrassing verifiable fact about a person,
there is (often) much less variation, and communities often come to an
agreement about whether the value outweighs the hazard.


Yann writes:
> I think that, world wide, people from conservative or
> traditional cultures don't have as much Internet access as
> people with libertarian views.

This is true, and worth considering.  Wikipedia is sometimes pointed
to as a reason for such communities to use the Internet.


Aryeh Gregor writes:
> First of all, the images rarely add much value.

Different audiences disagree widely on this point - for any
controversial image, groups opposed to it will find it valueless.


> Keep all the images if you like. Determine, by policy, [how to show them]

It's true that policies for what is kept in Commons are  different
from policies about what Projects show.

My view is, the latter should be determined by individual Projects -
though they may need help in implementing what they want.  On the
other hand, Commons is a project unto itself, and has its own content
policies (such as the prohibition on fair use).


> there's been edit-warring about [[Daniel Pearl]], but
> probably out of respect for his family

Largely true.  And we need to improve our standards of respect for
images of people.


Robert Rohde writes:

>Sexual photographs, especially those of easily recognized
> people, have the potential to exploit or embarrass the
> people in them.  I place a high value on not doing harm to
> the models pictured.
<
> At present, our controls regarding the publication of a
> person image are often very lax.  With regards to
> "self-made" images, we often take a lot of things on faith,
> and personally I see that as irresponsible

I agree strongly with this.  You are right to point out the connection
to improving BLP policies -- we should be much more careful to
confirming model rights for people in any potentially exploitative or
embarrassing photos.

Such ideas have been around for a long time.  What are the arguments
against implementing stronger requirements for images of people?

SJ