[WikiEN-l] Jimbo on Commons

[Delirium]

On 05/11/2010 02:43 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
> Fwiw, I've long thought the presence of graphic sexual pictures on
> Commons, and certainly in Wikipedia, does more harm than good, because
> it means the site "can't be trusted" in the eyes of librarians,
> teachers, etc etc.
>    

What level of graphic-ness do you have in mind? At least in the U.S., 
the level that we'd have to stay below to avoid controversy with regard 
to school libraries in particular is quite stringent: there are still 
routinely controversies over the photographs and illustrations in 
standard biology and even art textbooks.

I don't think it's the librarians themselves who are the problem, 
though; generally librarians have been at the forefront of opposing any 
censorship in libraries, and the pressure's come from outside forces 
that want libraries to impose requirements that they themselves don't 
want to impose.

-Mark