[Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Ray Saintonge]

Milos Rancic wrote:
> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>   
>> Milos Rancic wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>>>>         
>>> Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this
>>> process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content,
>>> but as related to cultural taboos or to "offensive imagery" if we want
>>> to use euphemism.
>>>
>>> Under the same category are:
>>> * sexual content;
>>> * images Muhammad;
>>> * images of sacral places of many tribes;
>>> * etc.
>>>       
>> I'm sure you mean "sacred" instead of "sacral" :-) .
>>     
>
> I've just went to Wikipedia [1] (accidentally, instead of Wiktionary)
> to see the difference between "sacral" and "sacred" and I've seen that
> those words are synonyms. Anyhow, it is good to know that "sacral" is
> at leas ambiguous. ("Sacral" is a borrowed word in Serbian, too; and
> Latin words make life easier to one native speaker of Serbian when he
> speaks English [and some other languages] :) )
>
>   

Borrowed words can also be false friends.  "Sacral" as "sacred" tends to 
be a more recent and specialized usage of the word, applicable to, 
according to the Oxford English Dictionary, anthropology and religion.  
Sometimes for me the danger is to know the language too well, and in the 
present context that started with pornographic images I only too easily 
imagined a series of photos about the "sacral places" of individuals. :-D

>> Censoring by default puts us back in the same old conflict of having to
>> decide what to censor.  Given a random 100 penis pictures we perhaps
>> need to ask questions like what distinguishes penis picture #27 from
>> penis picture #82.  The same could be asked about numerous photographs
>> of national penises like the Washington Monument or Eiffel Tower.
>>     
> ...
>   
>> Voting is evil, particularly when it entrenches the tyranny of the majority.
>>     
> People should be able to choose categories and to vote about them.
>   

That doesn't seem very practical. The choice of categories would itself 
be the source of disputes. If what is seen depends on where one lives 
there would be an endless stream of variations that could not be easily 
tracked. A 51% vote can as easily go in the opposite direction on the 
very next day.
> That part of proposal is not about denying to anyone to see something,
> but to put defaults on what not logged in users could see. There
> should be a [very] visible link, like on Google images search, which
> would easily overwrite the default rules. Personal permission would
> overwrite them, too. (If I was not clear up to now, "cultural
> censorship" won't forbid to anyone to see anything. It would be just
> *default*, which could be easily overwritten.)
>   

I agree that users' choice should be paramount. Making that choice needs 
to be carefully worded.  Simply putting, "Do you want to see dirty 
pictures?" on the Main Page would inspire people to actively look for 
those pictures.
> The point is that "cultural censorship" should reflect dominant
> position of one culture. My position is that we shouldn't define that
> one of our goals is to enlighten anyone. We should build knowledge
> repository and everyone should be free to use it. However, if some
> culture is oppressive and not permissive, it is not up to us to
> *actively* work on making that culture not oppressive and permissive.
> The other issue is that I strongly believe that free and permissive
> cultures are superior in comparison with other ones.
>   

Reflecting the dominance of one culture is dangerous, and in the extreme 
has led to genocidal behaviour, and served to make the great inquisition 
holy.

It is somewhat naïve to believe that we can limit ourselves to strictly 
factual data. There is implicit enlightenment in the choice of which 
facts to present. The encyclopedists of the 18th century likely thought 
of themselves as bringers of enlightenment. The 1389 Battle of Kosovo is 
of great historical importance to Serbs, but another group might not 
attach such importance to a battle from more than six centuries ago and 
omit iit entirely.

I agree that liberating oppressed people is not one of our tasks.  We 
should not be the ones going into China or Iran to make a fuss when 
those governments have blocked access to Wikimedia projects. That's up 
to the residents of those countries. Nor should we alter our 
presentation of data when those governments insist on their version of 
the truth.  It's unfortunate that some governments would view a 
dispassionate treatment of facts as subversive.

> So, basically, if residents of Texas decide to censor all images of
> Bay Area, including the Golden Gate Bridge, because they worry that
> Bay Area values are transmissible via Internet (as they are), I don't
> have anything against it. If more than 50% of Wikipedia users from
> Texas think so, let it be. Other inhabitants of Texas would need just
> to simply click on "I don't want to be censored" if they are not
> logged in, or they could adjust their settings as they like if they
> are logged in.
>   

Maybe Texas should not have given up its independence in 1846. The city 
of Austin has a reputation for having more liberal views than most of 
the state. Should it have its own criteria? Community standards do not 
give a stable criterion. Is the Bay Area to be treated any differently 
from the Los Angeles area?
> But, I would be, of course, completely fine if we implement censorship
> just on [voluntary] personal basis and thus just for logged in users.
> (As well as we don't implement censorship at all.)
>   
Of course. If teachers or parents want to restrict what is available to 
children they must accept the responsibility for doing so.  They can't 
go on expecting that broadly distributed websites will do this for 
them.  If the internet is an inappropriate babysitter it's up to the 
parents to hire a better one.

Ec