[Foundation-l] Controversial content software status

Tue Mar 6 05:25:55 UTC 2012

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 12:33 AM, Tobias Oelgarte <
tobias.oelgarte at googlemail.com> wrote:

> You also stated in another discussion that the sexuality related
> categories and images are also very popular among our readers and that the
> current practices would make it a porn site. Not that we are such a great
> porn site, we aren't, but we know where all this people come from. Take a
> look at the popular search terms at Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. One thing to
> notice: Sexuality related search requests are very popular. Since Wikipedia
> is high ranked and Commons as well, it is no wonder that so many people
> visit this galleries, even if they are disappointed in a very short time
> browsing through our content. But using this as an argument that we are a
> porn website is a fraud conclusion, as well as using this as an argument.

The earlier discussion you refer to, about Commons neither being nor
becoming a porn site, was in the context of how to rank search results in
the cluster search you proposed. Given that the
masturbating-with-a-toothbrush image is viewed 1,000 times more often than
other toothbrush images, an editor suggested that it was perhaps
appropriate that the masturbation image came near the top of Commons and
Wikipedia toothbrush search results. If people want porn, we should give
them porn, was the sentiment he expressed. I argued that following that
approach would indeed turn Commons into a porn site, and that doing so
might be incompatible with Wikimedia's tax-exempt status. (For those
interested, the actual discussion snippet is below.)

By the way, I would not say that Commons is entirely unsuitable as a porn
site. It may well fulfill that purpose for some users. One of the most
active Commons contributors in this area for example runs a free porn wiki
of his own, where he says about himself,

*"Many people keep telling me that pornography is a horrible thing, and
that i cannot be a radical, anarchist, ethical, buddhist... etc. Well, i am
all those things (sort of) and i like smut. I like porn. I like wanking
looking at other people wank, and i like knowing that other people enjoy
seeing me do that. Therefore i am setting up this site. This will be a
porno portal for the people who believe that we need to take smut away from
capitalist fuckers."*

There is certainly quite a strong collection of masturbation videos on
Commons. Now, all power to this contributor, if he enjoys his solitary sex
life – but would the public approve, if we told them that this sort of
mindset is representative of the people who define the curatorial effort
for adult materials in the Commons project funded by their donations? I am
not just talking about the Fox News public here. Do you think the New York
Times readership would approve?

Andreas

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3ARequests_for_comment%2Fimproving_search&diff=67902786&oldid=67859335

Agree with Niabot that page views aren't an ideal metric, especially if a
nice-to-have aspect of implementation would be that we are trying to reduce
the prominence of adult media files displayed for innocuous searches like
"toothbrush". Anything based on page views is likely to have the opposite
effect:

   - When ranked by pageviews or clicks, almost all the top Commons content
   pages <http://stats.grok.se/commons.m/top> are adult media files.
   - The most-viewed category is Category:Shaved genitalia
(female)<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Shaved_genitalia_(female)>,
   followed by Category:Vulva<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vulva>
    and Category:Female
genitalia<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_genitalia>
   .
   - The masturbating-with-a-toothbrush image is viewed more than 1,000
   times a day<http://stats.grok.se/commons.m/latest60/File:Masturbating%20with%20a%20toothbrush.jpg>,
   compared to roughly 1 view a
day<http://stats.grok.se/commons.m/latest60/File:Toothbrush-20060209.JPG>
    or less than one view a
day<http://stats.grok.se/commons.m/latest60/File:Motorized%20toothbrush.jpg>
for
   actual images of toothbrushes.
   - Its popularity is not due to the fact that it is our best image of a
   toothbrush (it isn't), or that the image is included in a subcategory of
   Category:Toothbrushes<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Toothbrushes>,
   the term the user searches for. It is due to the fact that it is primarily
   an image of masturbation displaying female genitalia: it is
included in Category:Shaved
   genitalia (female)<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Shaved_genitalia_(female)>,
   which, as mentioned above, is the most popular category in all of Commons,
   and it is also part of Category:Female
masturbation<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_masturbation>,
   the 10th most popular of all Commons categories.
   - The same thing applies to the cucumber images: their viewing figures
   will far outstrip viewing figures for any images just showing cucumbers,
   but these high viewing figures will not be because of people who have
   browsed to these images via the cucumber search term, or the cucumber
   category tree, but because of people interested in sexual media, where the
   presence of a cucumber is merely incidental.

More generally speaking, page views aren't everything; if we were after
maximising page views, we'd have a w:page 3
girl<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/page_3_girl> on
the main page. --*JN
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jayen466>466<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jayen466>
* 15:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC) I have to say, this comment makes me think that
maybe we don't have so much of a problem in the first place. If people are
actually looking for masturbation with a toothbrush 1000 times more often
than an actual toothbrush, then delivering that result for "toothbrush"
might just get people what they're looking for more often. The "principle
of least astonishment", if one believes in it, should dictate that if our
horny little audience is really hunting for porn most of the time, it would
be astonishing not to serve it up to them.
Wnt<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Wnt>
 (talk <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wnt>) 22:34, 4 March
2012 (UTC) The point I was trying to make is that those 1,000 daily page
views don't come from people who are searching for an image of a
toothbrush. They're from the quarter million people who look at Category:Shaved
genitalia (female)<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Shaved_genitalia_(female)>
 and Category:Female
masturbation<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_masturbation>
every
month, where this image is contained ... The other point is, regardless of
how educational it is to look at other people's genitalia, and at images of
other people having sex, would a free porn site meet the definition of a
tax-exempt educational site? If YouPorn, say, proposed a business model
whereby they were funded by donations, would they qualify for tax exemption
and 501(c)(3) status? Probably not. And would Wikimedia donors be happy to
see their money spent on providing the public with a free porn service?
Probably neither. --*JN
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jayen466>466<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jayen466>
* 00:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)