User:Ocaasi/sandbox3

Against censorship

W:General_disclaimer

• WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY
• PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ANY INFORMATION YOU MAY FIND IN WIKIPEDIA MAY BE INACCURATE, MISLEADING, DANGEROUS, ADDICTIVE, UNETHICAL OR ILLEGAL.
• WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY BE OBJECTIONABLE

W:Content Disclaimer

• WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY BE OBJECTIONABLE
• In its encyclopedic function, Wikipedia contains millions of articles on a vast array of topics. A relatively small fraction of these topics are frequently censored by educational, governmental, corporate, parental, and other filtering schemes.
• Some Wikipedia articles discuss words or language that are considered profane, vulgar, or offensive by some readers. See Wikipedia:Profanity for more information.
• Articles may contain audio, visual, or written representations of people or events which may be protected by some cultures.
• Wikipedia contains many different images, some of which are considered objectionable or offensive by some readers. For example, some articles contain graphical depictions of violence, or depictions of human anatomy.
• Many articles contain frank discussion of controversial topics. Some subjects that are discussed have criminal applications in some jurisdictions. Others contain information on dangerous or otherwise risky activities (see Wikipedia:General disclaimer and Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer).
• Wikipedia contains spoilers.
• Wikipedia may contain triggers for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Wikipedia may contain images and videos which can trigger epileptic seizures and other medical conditions.
• Since Wikipedia is open to contributions from the public, there may at any time be graffiti present on Wikipedia.
• Wikipedia's current policy is to include such content, provided it breaches neither any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view) nor the laws of the state of Florida in the United States, where Wikipedia is hosted. See a list of controversial issues for some examples of articles that may contain such content. Some of these articles contain warnings, but many do not.

W:Profanity

• Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission encompasses the inclusion of material that may offend. Wikipedia is not censored. However, words and images that can be considered offensive should not be included unless they are treated in an encyclopedic manner. Material that would be considered vulgar or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers[nb 1] should be used if and only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available.
• In original Wikipedia content, a vulgarity or obscenity should either appear in its full form or not at all; words should never be bowdlerized by replacing letters with dashes, asterisks, or other symbols. However, when quoting relevant material, rendering a quotation as it appears in the source cited trumps our style guidelines. Where it is necessary to indicate that an alteration is carried over from a quoted source, "[sic]" may be used.
• Discussions about whether to include a vulgar or obscene image or verbal expression are often heated. As in all discussions on Wikipedia, it is vital that all parties practice civility and assume good faith. Labeling content with such terms as "pornography" or responses to content with such terms as "censorship" tends to inflame the discussion and should be avoided. Objective terminology is more helpful than subjective terminology.
• Disclaimers should not be used in articles that contain potentially or patently offensive material. All articles are covered by the five official disclaimer pages.

W:Spoiler_warning

• It is not acceptable to delete information from an article because you think it spoils the plot. Such concerns must not interfere with neutral point of view, encyclopedic tone, completeness, or any other element of article quality (for example, Wikipedia:Lead section). When including spoilers, editors should make sure that an encyclopedic purpose is being served. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information—articles on a work of fiction should primarily describe it from a real-world perspective, discussing its reception, impact and significance.

W:Civility

• Civility is part of Wikipedia's code of conduct, and is one of Wikipedia's five pillars. The civility policy is a standard of conduct that sets out how Wikipedia editors should interact: editors should always endeavor to treat each other with consideration and respect. Even during heated debates, editors should behave politely, calmly and reasonably, in order to keep the focus on improving the encyclopedia and to help maintain a pleasant editing environment.
• This policy describes the standards of behavior expected of users when they interact, and appropriate ways of dealing with problems that may arise. It applies to all interaction on Wikipedia, including on user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians.

W:Five_pillars

• Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner. Respect and be polite to your fellow Wikipedians, even when you disagree. Apply Wikipedia etiquette, and avoid personal attacks. Find consensus, avoid edit wars, and remember that there are 3,423,481 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss. Act in good faith, never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming.

W:NOTCENSORED

• Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Anyone can edit an article, and most changes made are displayed immediately, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.
• Obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed. *However, some articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content.
• Nor will Wikipedia remove content because the internal bylaws of some organizations forbid that information from being displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion from showing a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations.

W:NOTANARCHY

• Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia. Accordingly, Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech. The fact that Wikipedia is an open, self-governing project does not mean that any part of its purpose is to explore the viability of anarchistic communities. Our purpose is to build an encyclopedia, not to test the limits of anarchism. See also meta:Power structure.

W:No disclaimers in articles

• While ideas like this have been continually proposed, the consensus is that they should not be used. In fact, all articles already have a disclaimer, linked at the bottom of this page and every page on Wikipedia. Additional disclaimers in encyclopedia articles should generally be removed, and disclaimer templates should be removed and deleted.

W:Wikipedia is amoral

• Wikipedia is, first and foremost, an encyclopedia, and as such, its primary goal is to be a fully comprehensive and informative reference work. Therefore, Wikipedia is amoral[note on intended meaning], in the sense that content is not censored or otherwise purposefully omitted on moral, ethical, or indirect legal grounds. In the pursuit of completeness, Wikipedia discusses and describes how to perform illegal and immoral acts, and includes "sensitive" but truthful information that has the potential to be used to harm. Wikipedia's place is to merely provide useful information; what people do with that information is entirely up to them and is none of Wikipedia's concern. Not to mention that trying to predict how people will use a given piece of information is nigh-impossible; thus, making decisions based on such predictions in order to "protect" an entity is questionable.
• Further, if Wikipedia was moral, it would be necessary to choose a particular morality, but this would violate Wikipedia's neutrality. Just as NPOV requires a level of factual relativism in not favoring any one view as absolute truth, so is a level of moral relativism required in deciding when to omit content.

W:News_suppression (failed proposal)

• In some rare instances, news sources refrain from publishing information that could have life-or-death consequences for individuals.[1] While Wikipedia is not a news source, it is often updated with the latest developments, and is expected to act responsibly. For that reason, Wikipedia should not publish information, even if it can be reliably sourced, where:
  • publication is likely to have life-or-death consequences for one or more individuals;
  • the information has not been widely published in reliable sources;
  • the public-interest aspect is marginal; and
  • the information is withheld for a limited time only.
• Whether mainstream news sources are actively suppressing a news report should be taken into consideration. Administrators or other editors enforcing this may avoid directly explaining why or referring to this rule, if doing so would draw attention (see Streisand effect). Including "per WP:News suppression" in the edit summary is probably a bad idea when trying to keep something secret. In those cases it would be prudent to explain the reasoning later.

Commons:What_Commons_is_not

• Due to their educational value for the understanding of certain subjects, Commons may host material that some users may find objectionable, distasteful, or offensive for various reasons. Unless the image has possible personality rights issues, is possibly illegal in the United States, or violates other Commons policy such as our scope, Commons will not censor or remove media that users find objectionable or offensive. Remember that the statement “Commons is not censored” is not a valid argument for keeping a file that falls outside the normal permitted Commons scope.

For targeted censorship

Bad image list W:Sexual_content

Since the use of sexual content in vandalism is more likely to offend than a more innocuous image, a bad image list was created to restrict the usage of certain images. This way, certain shocking images can be used in context in the appropriate article(s), but not spontaneously as an act of vandalism.

Obscenity W:Sexual_content

• Obscenity under the "Miller Test" or meet slightly less stringent requirements for "child pornography", in the case of images depicting children. Therefore unless a sexual image depicts children, it is not illegal under Wikipedia's applicable law, unless it meets all three of the criteria below:
  • Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
  • Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions [1] specifically defined by applicable criminal law,
  • Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
• In the context of this discussion, the second prong will doubtless be met. Therefore the question will arise whether the image appeals to the prurient interest. It is currently unclear under U.S. law how "contemporary community standards" are defined as to Internet materials, and given the variation of the human sexual response, it would be unwise to rely on that prong, except in obvious cases. Therefore, we need to make sure that every picture is directly applicable to the article to try and retain serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value (the scope of "the work" being Wikipedia as a whole, the article, or the image itself, again, being a possible matter for later legal dispute).

When possible, avoid images that are likely to offend W:WikiProject_Sexology_and_sexuality/WIP-image-guidelines

• Images relating to some topics cannot be informative without also running the risk of being offensive to some. However, when deciding between two equally informative images, the one which is least likely to offend (or is likely to offend the least) should be used.
• There is no way to interpret this other than subjectively. The law does not offer much help. The FCC uses the term "patently offensive" as a test for when things should be labled "indecent", but there are no clear rules for what this means. (See FCC Dismisses 36 Indecency Complaints as Not 'Patently Offensive'). Neither Piss Christ, in which a crucifix supporting the body of Jesus Christ is submerged in a glass of the artist's urine, nor Robert Mapplethorpe's self portrait in which he is dressed in leather chaps and cowboy boots, with a bullwhip stuck in his anus ("Self Portait") have been judged "indecent", yet a brief glimpse of Janet Jackson's breast was.
• Thus we must handle such decisions on a case-by-case basis.
• Artwork is preferred over photographs (This guideline is under debate). Artwork can include engravings, paintings, line drawings, etc.. For instance, see the lead image in masturbation. These should be preferred over photographs, except when a photograph clearly illustrates the point(s) of the article better than any available artwork. This isn't because there is anything wrong with photographs. Artwork and illustrations just have a lower probablility of offending. Do not use artwork over photographs to the detriment of the article. Clearly in some cases a photograph is much more valuable in describing the subject.

Moral issues Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_ people

• Not all legally-obtained photographs of individuals are acceptable to Commons even if they otherwise fall within the project's scope. The following types of image are normally considered unacceptable:
  • Those that unfairly demean or ridicule the subject
  • Those that are unfairly obtained
  • Those that unreasonably intrude into the subject's private or family life
• These are categories which are matters of common decency rather than law. They find a reflection in the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12: (No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation).
• The extent to which a particular photograph is "unfair" or "intrusive" will depend on the nature of the shot, whether it was taken in a public or private place, the title/description, and on the type of subject (e.g., a celebrity, a non-famous person, etc).
• This is all a matter of degree. A snatched shot of a celebrity caught in an embarrassing position in a public place may well be acceptable to the community; a similar shot of an anonymous member of the public may or may not be acceptable, depending on what is shown and how it is presented.

Commons is not an amateur porn site COMMONS:PORN

• We may remove low-quality pornographic images that do not contribute anything educationally useful to our existing collection of images. If the quality is bad, we may keep the file if we have no better file on a subject it can illustrate. As a result, uploaded low-quality photographs of genitalia are generally deleted quickly.

COMMONS:CENSOR

• However, Commons is not censored, and does quite legitimately include content which some users may consider objectionable or offensive. The policy of "Commons is not censored" means that a lawfully-hosted file, which falls within Commons' definitions of scope, will not be deleted solely on the grounds that it may not be "child-friendly" or that it may cause offense to you or others, for moral, personal, religious, social, or other reasons.
• The counterpoint to this, is that the statement "Commons is not censored" is not a valid argument for keeping a file that falls outside Commons' defined scope, as set out above. Photographs of nudity including male and female genitalia are sometimes uploaded for non-educational motives, and such images are not exempt from the requirement to comply with the rules of Commons' scope. If the images are of demonstrably inferior quality, or add nothing educationally distinct to the stock of such images we hold already, they may fail the test of being realistically useful for an educational purpose.
• A balance has to be struck between accepting useful media files with legitimate educational content that some may find offensive, and not allowing Commons to be used as a general-purpose media-hosting service (like Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, etc.), without regard for the project's stated goals. The purpose of Commons is to serve as a media repository, a reliable resource of useful, open source media content; organized and comprehensive in coverage (with accurate file descriptions/information), educational, and intended both for use by Wikimedia projects, and as a public service freely accessible to everyone.

COMMONS:Project_scope

• We hold many high quality images of species-identified birds, and there is no realistic educational use for a small, blurry, poorly composed snapshot of an unidentified and unidentifiable bird. Of course, there is always room for another educationally distinct image, for example illustrating some aspect of bird behaviour that we do not currently cover, even if the image is perhaps not of the highest quality.
• There may sometimes be an argument for retaining multiple images that are (from an educational point of view) quite similar, for the sake of variety and availability of choice, but there is no purpose in our hosting many essentially identical poor quality images that have no realistic educational value.
• New educational files of exceptional quality are always welcome, and the later uploading of such files may in principle render earlier unused poor quality files educationally redundant. However, as indicated above, a file that is used in good faith on a Wikimedia project is always considered educational, so a poor quality file that remains in use is not liable to deletion even if a better-quality file covering the same subject later becomes available.
• New and existing files of poor or mediocre quality may or may not be realistically useful for an educational purpose depending on what they illustrate and what other files we have of the same subject. Where a subject is rare and/or difficult to capture, even a poor quality file may be of significant educational value, especially if Commons has very few or no similar files already. On the other hand, poor or mediocre files of common and easy to capture subjects may have no realistic educational value, especially if Commons already hosts many similar or better quality examples.
• Image quality is just one of the factors that may limit the educational usefulness of a file. Other limiting factors may include low-resolution and hard-to-remove watermarks.

COMMONS:NUDITY

• It is felt that a guideline is needed, because at the moment there are no guidelines or policies as to what the acceptable bounds of content should be at Commons. Images depicting male nudity are regularly nominated for deletion at Commons:Deletion requests and the Commons is not censored policy is often cited as a defense. However it must be asked if allowing any content whatsoever (within the bounds of the law) is really serving the Wikimedia projects' aims. This guideline aims to define a reasonable bound for administrators and other users; to serve as a guide in deciding what should be kept and what may be deleted.
• Categories such as Category:Male reproductive system and Category:Penis show that Commons has a quantity of images relating to human genitalia. Some of these images are of low resolution and/or provide little descriptive information other than, for example, "self made" or "an erect human penis"; the user is told nothing useful about the background of the individual, or relevant vital statistics. Such images are of limited value as media for categories related to human anatomy and stages of development, because they depict a subject we already have images of, with no additional useful information.
• In such cases, the files may be nominated for deletion, citing appropriate rationale(s).
• If a file depicts some phenomenon or circumstance which we do not already have representations of (for example, diseases or body modifications) then it should be kept, as it adds to the educational content of Commons. Wikimedia Commons should have media depicting human anatomy in all its variety and diversity.
• If a new image depicts something we already have an image of, but in a better way, the older image may be considered for deletion.
  • Prefer higher resolution images over lower resolution images
  • Prefer focused images over unfocused and blurry images
  • Prefer images showing context (for example, the full male body) over images only showing a "groin shot"
  • Prefer non-confrontational framing (e.g. side-on) over "shocking" close-up shots (such images are more likely to be used in vandalism attacks for this reason)
• These preferences should help Commons build a higher quality database that adheres more closely to its educational aims.

W:NODISCLAIMERS

• Why disclaimers should not be used:
  • They are redundant with the Disclaimer linked at the bottom of every page.
  • Wikipedia is not censored.
  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and is not a how-to guide.
  • It is hard to define which articles should have a disclaimer (e.g. what defines "adult content" article, which varies dramatically by culture and individual). Allowing some disclaimers would generate a significant overhead of disputes regarding where to draw the line; this draws editors away from more productive tasks.
  • The lack of the disclaimer on certain pages as opposed to others might open Wikipedia to lawsuits.
  • By the time you read them, it's too late — the article has already loaded.
  • They take up large amounts of page space when used in banner form.
• Minority arguments in favour of disclaimers have included:
  • People might be genuinely upset by seeing certain content on Wikipedia.
  • The user does not know where objectionable or disturbing content may appear, and it may therefore catch them off-guard.
  • Once you've seen an offensive image, you can't just pretend you never saw it.
  • The benefits of disclaimers are immediate, frequent, and real, whereas lawsuits are distant, rare, and hypothetical.

Jimbo Wales on obscenity W:Pornography

• While Jimbo's formal role has shrunk over the years, he is granted a tremendous amount of respect for his role in forming Wikipedia, putting it under a free license and guiding its formation. His opinion thus has much informal authority and he occasionally acts as an appeal of last resort. Jimbo in general endorses displaying topical images, even if some consider them obscene, but there are limits:
  • Jimbo once removed a photograph of autofellatio from its relevant article, with the comment: "This image is completely unacceptable for wikipedia -- I don't even consider this borderline." [1] After some reverts by various editors, he stated, "for now the link version is a decent compromise" [2] The image was subsequently deleted for copyright violation, and replaced by a drawing, which was added to the article. [3] A month later, a free-licensed image was added as a link following the earlier compromise. [4]
  • A photo used to illustrate Creampie (sexual act) was deleted by Jimbo with the summary, "Image would trigger 2257 record keeping requirements." This refers to the enforcement guidelines for the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, which require the "publisher" of sexually explicit material, Wikipedia in this case, to obtain and maintain records proving that the model is of legal age.
  • An extensive debate filling six pages of archives at Talk:Lolicon regarding a drawing of a seminude seven-year-old girl with a dildo and a teddy bear in S&M regalia was resolved by an out-of-process deletion of the image by an admin, who was congratulated by Jimbo.
  • In June 2007, several lolicon versions of Wikipe-tan were uploaded. In the midst of the deletion debate, Jimbo deleted the images, noting, "pedophilic sexualization of a community mascot? No. - email me if you have questions."

Commons:Project_scope#Must_be_realistically_useful_for_an_educational_purpose

• The expression "educational" is to be understood according to its broad meaning of "providing knowledge; instructional or informative".
  • A media file that is in bona fide educational use in an article (the "mainspace") of one of the other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation is considered automatically to comply with this requirement, as is a file in bona fide use for some operational reason such as within a template or the like.
  • An otherwise non-educational file does not acquire educational purpose solely because it is in use on a user page (the "User:" namespace) of another project, but by custom the uploading of small numbers of images (eg of yourself) for bona fide use on a personal user page of another project is considered legitimate.
• File NOT in use in another Wikimedia project
  • Any file that is realistically useful for an educational purpose, which means that it is broadly speaking "providing knowledge; instructional or informative".
  • An otherwise non-educational file does not acquire educational purpose solely because it is in use on a gallery page or in a category on Commons, nor solely because it is in use on a user page (the "User:" namespace), but the uploading of small numbers of images (eg of yourself) for bona fide use on a personal **Commons user page is considered legitimate.
• Examples of files that are not realistically useful for an educational purpose:
  • Private image collections, e.g. private party photos, photos of yourself and your friends, your collection of holiday snaps and so on. There are plenty of other projects on the Internet you can use for such a purpose, such as Flickr. Such private image collections do not become educational even if displayed as a gallery on a user page on Commons or elsewhere.
  • Self-created artwork without obvious educational use.
  • Files apparently created and/or uploaded for the purpose of vandalism or attack. Preexisting designs and symbols that are or have been associated with nationalistic, religious or racist causes are not out of scope solely because they may cause offence. Provided they are legal to host and otherwise fall within Commons scope (e.g. if they could for example be used to illustrate a Wikipedia article on a hate-group) they should be kept.
  • Advertising or self-promotion.
  • Files that add nothing educationally distinct to the collection of images we already hold covering the same subject, especially if they are of poor or mediocre quality.

W:Help:Options_to_not_see_an_image

• Some people wish to not see some images on Wikipedia, for various reasons – images may not be suitable for a work environment; they may wish to prevent their children from seeing such images; their religion may forbid it; and so on.
• Wikipedia is not censored, and the community will in general not be prepared to remove content on grounds of being objectionable to some people. Wikipedia will also not use specific disclaimers within articles warning readers of such content. All articles fall under the site-wide Content disclaimer. However, readers who do not wish to be exposed to certain content have a number of options to selectively prevent Wikipedia content from being displayed on their screen.
• This page assumes that (a) you still want to visit Wikipedia (rather than creating a fork or simply staying away) and (b) you do not wish to enter discussions within Wikipedia policy to have the image changed, removed or deleted by building consensus.
• Wikipedia readers have two possibilities to influence the way Wikipedia content is displayed on their screens:
  • by creating an account and reading Wikipedia while logged in. User accounts offer a number of preference settings, including the selective display of images.
  • by filtering content locally, either by setting up a proxy (such as Privoxy), or by configuring their web browser (including the possibility to display no images at all).

Study Text

Preemptive censorship as a defense against censorship

• The growing acknowledgment of the power of the Internet in general, and its great, powerful institutions in particular, of which Wikimedia is most certainly one, must force upon Wikimedia a heightened sense of the responsibility that comes with that power. Again and again over the past few months, we have been told by international free-speech watchdogs that a new wave of Internet censorship is spreading throughout the world, a backlash, if you will, against the enormous, seemingly unregulated power of the Net. Wikimedia projects cannot assume that they will be immune from this backlash. It is our view that the best defense against these forces is a clear commitment to public service by the projects, a commitment to a principle, which, as noted above, already exists as a foundational pillar of the projects. Wikimedia is eventually dependent on public acceptance and support of its mission, practices, and procedures for its continued healthy existence.

Intent to Arouse

• We are suggesting they be deleted because they are out of scope – they serve no “reasonable educational purpose”...their intent is to arouse, not inform...

Credibility of the project

• It is our belief that the presence of these out of scope images in Commons is potentially dangerous for the Foundation and Community because they reduce the overall credibility of the projects as responsible educational endeavors, and thus call into question the legitimacy of the many images of sexual content and “controversial” sexual content that must remain on Commons for the projects to fulfill their mission.

Porn as POV

• And, although not our primary motivation in making this recommendation, it must be noted that they are offensive to many people, men and women alike, and represent with their inclusion a very clear bias, and point of view – that of woman as sexual object. They are far from neutral. We would never allow this point of view untrammeled and unreflexive presence on any Wikipedia site as a clear violation of NPOV– we should not allow it on Commons either.

The piano/woman example

• It is the intent of the image we are questioning. And you may ask how in the world the intent of an image is to be determined, or why we chose that language to determine potential educational value. Here’s the situation we were trying to isolate. If I take a picture of the piano in my living room, we might determine that the educational value of the image lay in the documentation of the particular type of piano, or the documentation of the use of a piano to decorate a twenty-first century living room. If however, we added to this image a picture of a young woman, perfectly made up, nude, posed on the bench with her legs splayed apart, facing away from the piano, looking directly at the camera, it adds a completely different element to the picture, one that fundamentally changes – we would say reduces -- its educational validity. And the reason for that is the image of the young woman has no informational value. Her presence is purposeless except to create an emotional response, in this case, sexual arousal. (Whether it succeeds or not is irrelevant). You may ask how we know for what purpose her presence (or his, if it were a male) is included in the photograph. Obviously, we don’t “know” definitively, but a “reasonable person”, we believe, might come to this conclusion by asking questions such as: “What purpose, other than arousal, does the image of the woman fulfill? , “What other reason may be adduced for its presence?” or, “What educational value does the figure of the woman add to the image?” Note that we do not think these are necessarily easy questions to answer, which is why we believe the normal delete process is beneficial to their discussion. We chose “intent to arouse” as an attempt to isolate the qualities of the images we thought were questionable for an educational resource. But, again, not the intent of the photographer, or uploader – rather the educational intent of the image – the educational potential of the image.

Commentary

• I recently commented that 'intent to arouse' was a false metric. Now I'd like to address 'service and respect to readers'. I want to make clear that I don't object to all of the aims presented in the study, but am specifically concerned about language being used to justify the changes, language which establishes precedents and weighs on long-standing policy. Despite author's claims that 'service and respect to readers' are a long-standing implied platform, I find few claims to support this, and many more which suggest otherwise. In almost every case, policy from Wikipedia and Commons take pains to make clear that where conflicts exist, freedom wins, encyclopedic mission wins, and users can tolerate it or look elsewhere.

• I was thinking about your example, and something was bothering me but I couldn't figure out exactly what. At first I wanted to argue that there is a potential use for the final image you described, but I realized it was more subtle than that. Here goes: Imagine a woman, nude, seated on a wooden bench in a room. Her legs are spread open. Her elbow is on her knee. The room is well lit, the photo clear, the woman's face visible and detailed. There is also a piano.
• What I think your example reveals is anchoring bias. By establishing the piano first you assume its purpose as the focus of the photograph and any addition to it is inherently superfluous, competing with the already established piano in the reader's mind. But if you reverse the telling, you allow the woman to take attention. The photo sounds interesting, provocative, arousing, perhaps. Demonstrative of something, maybe just women, sitting women, nude women, something. To the point, it seems to stand by itself. By the time you reach the piano, it's not clear why that matters at all. So, I officially challenge your thought experiment. Don't assume your piano, and the moral changes.

• The intent of the photographer or uploader is unknown and perhaps unknowable. In effect, this turn of phrase is a pure projection--to use the clinical term--of the image-viewer's biases about the image-uploader's intentions. It is a category error: there is not 'intent to arouse' without someone's arousal; in other words, this image is controversial because it makes someone horny. (Or in the case of violence, because it makes someone squeamish or horrified). In truth, there is no other metric apart from our own individual reactions. So just say it: we are censoring these images because many people will be turned on by them or shocked by them. And that is okay or tolerable but not more than necessary to advance the encyclopedia's core mission.
• Wikipedia is not Google or YouTube or Facebook. It makes no profit. It has no goal except to deliver the sum total of human knowledge to its users. This is not a polite mission. It is a radical mission. I don't want to give cover to 'prurient' trivialities, but there is a sense in which today's "icky" images are always the boundaries of what society is willing to explore. The frontiers of human knowledge, whether in sex, science, violence, or other taboos is never comfortable. Yet this is where knowledge is expanded and discovered. There is a clear friction between the twin goals of presenting knowledge comfortably and allowing its growth beyond those boundaries.
• Per many Wikipedia policies, Wikipedia is neither censored nor a crystal ball. It reflects the world as it is. But that is 'the thing' with controversial images: they exist. They happen. Sex happens. Ejaculation happens. Dildos happen. Beatings happen. Massacres happen. And so on. You make the fair point that these things can be shown without being endlessly replicated--and that people should have the 'option' to exclude these images if they wish. That seems fair. But don't do it under the guise of intent.
• Do the images which show off women's bodies cross a line because they 'portray women as sexual objects'? I don't know, do they arouse you? Women are sexual objects, if you find them sexual and you objectify them. But again, that is in the eye of the beholder. Photos of women are not objectifying unless that is the lens through which they are viewed. This is a naive view, but it is also true.
• A broader and more subversive or post-modern critique is that the socially-constructed definitions of what is sexual or controversial should not apply to an encyclopedia at all. For these things happen at the interface between object and subject, content and viewer, and they are not attributes of things in themselves. At the least, they are subjective, and as such cannot be applied across broad categories. Is that hand-tying? Yes, but if you want to be free to make choices which censor, as any decision to eliminate content will do, then you have to say clearly that you are making socially supported choices, biased by social attitudes. It's not a very Wikipedia thing to say, but if it's true, better to say it. Lots of users don't like seeing these images so we are going to limit the number of them to what is minimally needed.
• I realize that justifying 'more boobies' with highfalutin social criticism is a risk--and a middle path might need to be charted which you have begun to do. But let's choose the words carefully, lest we weave a web that will ensnare us as well.

• I am as much concerned with the language as the actual filtering. "Intent to arouse" is a thought-crime. It is a Kafka-esque road that we should not go down. Culling tits by legislating people's motivations is a devil's bargain. It's not just about specific acts when you make law, but about setting precedents for guilt and innocence. "I didn't do it!" ..."But you thought about doing it!" is no world to live in. We shouldn't encourage it here.
• Of course I'm talking about porn, if you can define it. Surely some people's porn is other people's breakfast, and vice-versa. Besides, as Cyclopia also mentioned, 'porn' is real. It exists too. Arguably, it should not be presented any less vividly and thoroughly than pictures of trains or architecture. So some people get off on it or have to avert their eyes. If you like it, look. If you don't like it, don't. Our job is do a good job of collecting it.
• If I had to choose between post-hoc and pre-censored, I'd think I'd take post-hoc. Once the images stop even showing up, there's nothing to rationalize--you don't even know what you missed.
• Again, just be clear about it: "We're offended by lots of pictures of naked women doing sexual things and random shots of men masturbating and we're not going to allow it to expand beyond a necessary minimum. It's porn, and we think too much of it is bad for the encyclopedia." If that holds up to critique, then you'll be on much firmer ground.
• Either way, if you still want to censor bodies and sex acts, I don't think there's much particular need for any grand controversial image policy. Just use existing guidelines about redundancy and replication. If you have one great picture of a vulva, allow in 4 others for variety, but not 60 just for kicks. Call it curating rather than censoring. But please drop the 'intent to arouse' bit. Ocaasi 00:08, 23 September 2010 (UTC)