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

[Ray Saintonge]

Aryeh Gregor wrote:
> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 1:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>   
>> On foundation-l we are divided between moderates and libertarians. The
>> libertarians are more strident in their views, so the debate can seem
>> one-sided at times, but there is a substantial moderate contingent,
>> and I count myself among them. Conservatives have no direct voice
>> here, but they are conceptually represented by Fox News and its audience.
>>     
> There are some people here who exactly fit your description of
> conservatives, such as me.  But we're forced by the overwhelming
> libertarian majority to play the part of moderates as a compromise.
> Regardless, more people than just religious conservatives would prefer
> not to see naked people without warning.  At the very least, few
> people would be happy in unexpected nudity showing up while they're
> browsing at work, with children watching them, etc. -- it's
> embarrassing.  You're probably correct that this is *historically* due
> to religious conservatism, but the preference remains even for
> completely irreligious people.
>   

This is an important point, and I say this as one who considers himself 
to be somewhere on the irreverently liberal (not libertarian) end of the 
spectrum. Even as one who considers some measure of these illustrations 
as acceptable, but who regards an excess of them to be tiresome, 
especially when they start to appear in unexpected circumstances.  
Perhaps a parallel might be drawn with a deeply religious conservative 
beset by proselytizers intent on converting him to the beliefs he 
already has with arguments far below the quality of his own theological 
experience.
>
> The standard objection here is "But then we have to hide Muhammad
> images too!"  This is, of course, a non sequitur.  A large percentage
> of English speakers prefer not to see nude images without warning, but
> only a tiny percentage prefer not to see pictures of Muhammad, so the
> English Wikipedia should cater to the former group but not the latter.
>  The Arabic Wikipedia might also cater to the latter group -- indeed,
> I see no pictures of Muhammad at <http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/محمد>.
> But we only need to look at large groups of viewers, not small
> minorities.  If the minority is small enough, their benefit from not
> having to see the images is outweighed by the majority's benefit in
> the aesthetic appeal of the images.
>   

Each such issue will have its own spectrum of supporters and 
detractors.  It should not be our role to decide for them; we can only 
make it easier for them to make decisions consistent with their own beliefs.

> It's really very easy to determine where to draw the line.  There are
> a multitude of English-language informative publications
> (encyclopedias, newspapers, news shows, etc.) published by many
> independent companies, and the major ones all follow quite similar
> standards on what sorts of images they publish.  Since news reporting,
> for instance, is very competitive, we can surmise that they avoid
> showing images only because their viewers don't want to see them.  Or
> if it's because of regulations, those are instituted democratically,
> so a similar conclusion follows.
>   

Not necessarily. Supermarket tabloids still sell well. Sometimes it's 
the advertisers, and not the readers who determine this.

> The solution is very simple.  Keep all the images if you like.
> Determine, by policy, what sorts of images should not be shown by
> default, based on the policies of major publications in the relevant
> language.  If an image is informative but falls afoul of the policy,
> then include it as a link, or a blurred-out version, or something like
> that.  This way people can see the images only if they actually want
> to see them, and not be forced to see them regardless.  

Each project will be left to determine its own standards.  When dealing 
with Commons "relevant language" is a meaning less term.

> It would
> hardly be any great burden when compared to the innumerable byzantine
> policies that already encumber everything on Wikipedia.
>   

That speaks to keeping things simple, avoiding the compulsion to 
overexplain everything.  Excessive explanation tends to make laws and 
policies more obscure.

> The reason that this isn't the status quo has nothing to do with
> libertarianism.  As I argue above, the properly libertarian solution
> would be to give people a choice of which images they view if there's
> doubt whether they'd like to view them.  Rather, quite simply, we have
> sexual images in articles without warning because Wikipedia editors
> tend to be sexually liberal as a matter of demographics, and have a
> lot more tolerance for nudity than the average person.  With no
> effective means of gathering input from non-editors, they decide on an
> image policy that's much more liberal than what their viewers would
> actually like.  This is a gratuitous disservice to Wikipedia's
> viewers, and should be rectified.
I have no problem with a liberal inclusion policy, but who find a more 
conservative access policy acceptable.

Ec