No subject

needs to be there to be discussed by the fact that the image is
copyrighted and not available freely... so it neatly dovetails with
our own criteria of "we must need this image for editorial purposes"
in order to use it. If we hadn't needed that, we'd have more reason
for quietly killing it.

These criteria are fairly robust, if sometimes handled a bit loosely,
and it's worth thinking about them. They don't apply to
freely-licensed material, of course, but in a discussion last week
(about a CC image I was arguing to remove), I suggested that we could
do a lot worse than apply a modified version of the non-free content
criteria to any lurid images, and rigorously think - do we need this,
can we reasonably discuss the topic without it, can we replace it with
an equally useful image, is it just decoration?

It might be worth considering something like this - we don't want
lurid or shocking images plastered across the site unless they have
editorial merit, but conversely removing them *merely* for their
content can prove counterproductive. Some kind of policy that says
"think hard about it and have a good reason; make sure it needs to be
there" could turn out to have much of the desired effect.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk