Wales Supports Purging Porn From Wikipedia 263
Larry Sanger writes "Jimmy Wales recently took a bold position against pornography on Wikimedia Commons: 'Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support.' Wales also restarted the "Commons:Sexual content" policy page. His basic complaint is that Wikimedia Commons hosts too much unnecessary porn, and he wants to get rid of it. He underscored his seriousness this way, stating that we can expect 'a strong statement' from the WMF soon: 'If the Wikimedia Foundation wants to declare that it is OK for Commons to be a porn host, they can do that, and I'll not be able to continue. That isn't going to happen, though, and in fact you should expect a strong statement from the Board and/or Sue in the next few days.'" (More, below.)
Sanger continues: "This comes about a month after I originally posted my report about depictions of child sexual molestation on Wikimedia Foundation servers to the FBI, which Slashdot duly ripped to shreds (as only Slashdot can), and a little over a week after the FoxNews.com story. The latter coverage reported that one of my senators, and my representative to Congress, had forwarded the matter to the FBI's Assistant Director of Congressional Affairs. I'm happy to be able to congratulate Jimmy Wales for his good judgment on this, and I look forward to the larger Wikimedia community approaching these issues with a little more sanity."
does Wales still have any authority? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would've thought after the embezzling-expenses scandal, the Canadian-right-wing-talk-show-host scandal, the conflict of interest between his for-profit business at Wikia and the non-profit charity Wikipedia, and who knows how many others, that he would've been put out to pasture by now.
Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:2, Insightful)
What does that even mean? So you host porn. And you admit some of it is unnecessary. And the ratio of unnecessary porn to necessary porn is too high? WTF?! Just stop hosting porn, or STFU.
Re:"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:5, Insightful)
What does that even mean? So you host porn. And you admit some of it is unnecessary. And the ratio of unnecessary porn to necessary porn is too high? WTF?! Just stop hosting porn, or STFU.
This does raise a good question: What is a necessary amount of porn?
Start with this then... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo [wikipedia.org]
Censorship is a slippery slop.
I can't explain what pr0n is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let him go. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been using wikipedia for since it's inception and never once do I recall being subjected to "pornography". However, if I needed to do a research paper for school on the subject, I would appreciate the maintained links that wikipedia provides. Censorship. Give me a break. Then you need a whole team of censors to debate over what is acceptable or not, which is unnecessary and ridiculous. IT'S AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. All information is acceptable. Because, it's informative.
As a Slashdotter to Mr. Sanger (Score:5, Insightful)
This comes about a month after I originally posted my report about depictions-of-child-sexual-molestation on Wikimedia Foundation servers to the FBI, which Slashdot duly ripped to shreds (as only Slashdot can)
Well, I read a lot of those comments and while they were for the most part overly negative toward you, I think they had some good advice.
A number [slashdot.org] of them [slashdot.org] let you know that if you want to champion this message that Wikipedia hosts child porn then you should probably drop the "and also I run a clean competing product called Citizendia." I'm not accusing you of this but on the surface it may seem that you are blowing this whole thing out of proportion in some sort of free-cyclopedia-war. I think the Slashdot comments sent you a very valuable message to keep both of these messages separate to avoid that possibility.
Another thing that comments focused on was your Libertarianism conflicting with your moralism. The comments explored possibilities in which "child porn" becomes used inadvertently without an actual production or desire [slashdot.org] for it to be used as such. What about when someone draws or makes computer simulations [slashdot.org] of said things? If it neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg, shouldn't a Libertarian allow that? It seems your morals and ethics do come into conflict with a pure Libertarian stance. Slashdot has a large Libertarian readership so you should be prepared for this.
I was in a museum in New York City and saw an exhibit of with pictures of mentally challenged children playing outside in the grass, mostly undressed. Everyone else there was treating it as "art." I'd like to Google and find the artist for you but I'm not interested in that being saved in my Google searches. Which reveals to you that I'm not a big fan of what you speak of either (if it's any consolation) but I think the images on Wikimedia are community regulated and you're going to find an argument somewhere no matter what stance you take. For instance, I will defend [WARNING! Nudity] this image [wikipedia.org] as an image of war, a reminder of Vietnam, a historical photograph and I am prepared to argue with you that that image has some merit and should remain on Wikipedia. But if I understand your stance that image needs to be removed?
You shouldn't take these comments as "ripped to shreds." Slashdot likes to avoid the obvious discussion and no one's interested in "I agree." comments as they don't add much to the conversation. When your ideas are on Slashdot, you're being flayed open for anyone to take any amount of time to poke at your soft underbelly and do what they want with it. Expect the full spectrum of responses and it seems that no matter how much I disagree with a stance, if you can form it into cogent and at least semi-logical defenses then you should be modded up.
You're a valuable member of the Slashdot community. I don't think you should take the highly rated, negative comments to heart and I hope you continue to contribute to Slashdot like NewYorkCountryLawyer.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally think he should be forced to read this [theonion.com] several times in a sitting.
And then yeah. He needs to be put out to pasture. And so do most of his patsies and corrupt hangers-on that make up the majority of Wikipedia's "administrator" clique while we're at it. Wikipedia has gotten to the point where so many article spaces are completely worthless because they're controlled not by sensible people wanting to write a real encyclopedia, but by organized game-players who rig the system.
Re:"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:5, Insightful)
The necessary amount of porn is mainly related to how bogus the definition of porn is.
Of course this is a big fat social red herring with the biggest problem being the nailing down of exactly what porn is.
Porn is a scary sounding word that's easy to use to quickly defame someone.
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
WP:CENSOR? (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as it focuses on applying actual existing Wikipedia policy - removing stuff that's just plain porn, but leaving material that's sexually explicit but informative or educational - this sounds like a good thing. There's plenty of other places on the web for gratuitous beaver shots. But if it turns into an attempt to censor Wikipedia into a PG13 (or even R) "family-friendly" encyclopedia, or serves as the justification for a witch-hunt against "adult" subjects in general in the guise of a "protect the children" campaign, that'll be bad for Wikipedia and a really bad precedent.
Re:Damn the Welsh! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:2, Insightful)
Porn is a scary sounding word that's easy to use to quickly defame someone.
These sound like the words of a COMMUNIST or a TERRORIST or the dreaded LIBERTARIAN!.
Descriptive or prescriptive? (Score:1, Insightful)
I suppose that Wales never took an art history course. Many of the world's most famous works of art could have been described as "images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests" in their time.
It seems that Wales doesn't want a Wikipedia that accurately describes our contemporary world. Instead, he wants a Wikipedia that prescribes what he thinks the world SHOULD be like.
Re:"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:3, Insightful)
What is a necessary amount of porn?
The amount required to enable you to get off so that you can return to more productive pursuits? ;)
Re:Oh noes porn! (Score:2, Insightful)
What would blow his fucking mind is if someone went through and replaced ALL the live action porn with the anime equivalents, since they wouldn't trigger USC 2257, and isn't "photographs and film".
Bonus points if you track down various thousand-year-old woodblock prints like the one with the woman fucking an octopus and use those instead, public domain ;)
Re:Start with this then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let him go. (Score:2, Insightful)
Somebody wants information about human sexuality removed from an encyclopedia or he's going to walk? I say, let him and his puritanical beliefs walk.
Actually that's not what this is about at all. Feel free to read the article next time, so you can speak intelligently with the rest of the adults.
Re:Start with this then... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now mark me flamebait, I don't mind.
Re:Start with this then... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not pornography (though I object to this image, of course, for many reasons).
It may not be something that you would consider pornography... But that doesn't mean nobody out there does.
It's a topless woman. Sure, she's a statue... And missing arms... But she's still topless. There are plenty of websites out there displaying plenty of images awfully similar to this.
And there are plenty of people out there who's been offended by statues just like this. We've had politicians covering up topless statues before they give press conferences... And editing their state seals because it's got boobs on it...
The fact that 3 idiot mods upvoted you does not even surprise me anymore.
Why shouldn't it be upvoted? It's relevant to the discussion.
There are folks out there who've screamed about David's [wikipedia.org] penis over the years... They're of the firm opinion that it constitutes porn... And they'd love to get it taken out of every art-history book out there.
So, who gets to choose? Is it porn or not? Where do we draw the line?
If we start taking out anything and everything that could be considered pornographic by somebody on the planet we aren't going to have a whole lot left.
Re:Start with this then... (Score:3, Insightful)
Pornography is defined at least here in the states as being primarily for prurient interests and having no social or artistic value.
Heck, Wales uses the same criteria in the summary.
So Venus de Milo wouldn't count.
What else do you got?
Re:"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:1, Insightful)
"Dreaded" libertarian? Right-wingers like the word so much they stole it from the socialist anarchists [blackened.net].
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Start with this then... (Score:3, Insightful)
Pornography is defined at least here in the states as being primarily for prurient interests and having no social or artistic value.
Heck, Wales uses the same criteria in the summary.
So Venus de Milo wouldn't count.
What else do you got?
The artistic value is based on who's judgment is the point here. Just because a group of people get together and state that an old sculpture of a partially clothed (or mostly nude depending on your take) woman is art vice pornography doesn't make sense. It is a social philosophical issue of what is art vice what is pornography. Better yet, why pornography has such taboo tied to it yet violence is fine. Games and movies have freedom with violence, but flash a woman's breast and folks get all wound up.
Re:"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:3, Insightful)
And what is porn? And who gets to decide this? Some Las Vegas entrepreneur or a born-again from the bible belt?
I'll answer that: Whoever screams the loudest.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
Re:May 2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a real warning people get for uploading too much cock onto Commons.
Hahaha... oh wow... For some reason, having a template letter for when people upload too much genitalia seems like a whole new level of bureaucracy. Please don't mistake this for a troll or flamebait, but as an outsider to the whole editing wikipedia thing, it's hilarious in a very immature way.
You see, for this template to exist, it must mean that on a regular basis there's gigabytes of penis.jpg being uploaded. It also means, that there's several editors constantly removing aforementioned penis.jpg, and when the uploader wishes to discuss the removal of their upload, someone is bound to discuss why it needs to be removed.
Thanks for this. For some immature and juvenile reason, this just made my day.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:2, Insightful)
I love this answer and I only wish I could mod you up. Whoever rated it as flamebait is a moron.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
traditional, things like 'Censorship' were defined as being done by a government because that was they large body. IN fact, they were the government because the controlled everything.
It's been different since the East Indies trading company.
Simple look at how it behaves makes it very clear that yes, they need to have the constitution applied to them as well. The point of the constitution is to limit the controlling power, i.e. the feds and states.*
In fact, the power exerted by English corporation is why several of our founders wanted the constitution to ban them outright, Along with copyright. Both are tools for creating powerful controlling entities outside the frame work of government. Yiou can talk free market all you want, but the demonstrated fact is that large corporation have controlling effects that mean no market can actually be free because the consumer doesn't get all the information they need to make a good** decision.
Since they can become more controlling then a government they need limitations and regulations.
*Yes, it's more complex, but that;s it in a very small nutshell.
**good for them, not good as in higher principles.
Re:Oh noes porn! (Score:3, Insightful)
Much S&M is consensual, consequently not abuse.
Re:Let him go. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm certainly not stating that children should be exposed (har har) to pornography repeatedly, only that anyone looking for it need only open their eyes. To frame pornography in a light that sheds educational value is truly the best way to supplant the horrors of sex from the would-be innocent kids out there.
The truth of the matter is that some people get off on pictures of feet. Are pictures of feet, thus, porn? To what end does the definition become a four letter word? It's all about context.
On another note, as a 'civilized' culture, [we] are migrating further and further towards the notion that sex is evil, dirty, and not to be discussed or viewed ever, just as the slippery slope will lead to other less desirable facets of moral outrage--and that's a goddamned shame. There is nothing wrong with sex; [we should] stop insinuating that there is [something wrong with sex] to everyone, whether they listen or not.
Re:"too much unnecessary porn" (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes! This! You lighten up about OMG NAKED BODIES because prurience is no reason to delete it!
Personally, I agree with you.
Obviously depictions of (actual, not artwork) child molestation, etc., should be removed as violations of law just about everywhere and specifically in the hosting countries.
But this is where you start running into problems.
Legality varies with geography. Sure, child pornography is pretty much universally illegal... But what constitutes a child? The age of majority varies from one place to the next.
And some places deem various sex acts as outright criminal.
So, now what?
imposing these sorts of uptight cultural standards is entirely contradictory to the spirit of a participatory medium dedicated to freedom of knowledge and information.
Yes, it is. But that's never stopped someone from filing a lawsuit.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:3, Insightful)
True, and that rises interesting questions about whether the 1st Amendment or other laws like it are still sufficient in modern day. When corporations near governments in their power, shouldn't they be subjected to the same standards of behaviour?
No one is forcing you to use Wikipedia. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you don't like some corporation's policies, then don't use their products. What you're arguing for is a government-mandated right to tell private entitites that they WILL print your thoughts. You have no right... none... to tell Wikipedia or any other non-government organization how to do things.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:4, Insightful)
Until a company can come to my house with guns and take away my freedom for choosing to not do business with them, the Bill of Rights should continue to apply only to the government.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:3, Insightful)
When corporations near governments in their power
Well there's your problem.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:4, Insightful)
The 1st amendment is sufficient as written to control the federal government in the area of free speech and freedom of religion. That was the intent of the Constitution in general...limiting the power of government over free people. The constitution was NEVER designed to limit or otherwise interfere with private business of any kind within the borders of the US. (The fed was given the power to tax imports from private businesses outside the borders...this is called a tariff. The fed was also given the ability to regulate interstate commerce...it has been abused by congress mightily).
As was said by a previous poster, the 1st amendment only guarantees that congress can't make a law that infringes on your right to free speech, your right to the "free exercise of religion", freedom of the press or preventing you from petitioning the government "for a redress of grievances". This amendment also prevents congress from passing a law "...respecting an establishment of religion".
This amendment says nothing about what a private company can or cannot tell its employees to do or say.
Re:Let him go. (Score:3, Insightful)
Blatantly false edits usually get fixed pretty darned fast.
Yeah, it's the subtly misleading edits and politically-driven omissions that are the real problem, since those are damn near impossible to spot and very difficult to challenge even if you do.
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations are owned by people. To force certain "standards of behavior" on a corporation is to say to the owners of that corporation, "You do not have the same rights to do what you want with this particular property as you have with your other property. Instead you must accept limitations of use not according to infringements of other people's fundamental rights (as is the case for all other private property), but according to the property's value to the public." Unless of course, you believe that people have a fundamental right to use other people's private property with the same freedom that they use public property.
How valuable/powerful should a corporation be before it's controlled by the government "for the common good"? Is it the right (maybe you believe "duty") of government to punish those who have been successful enough to build a large corporation, by slowly removing the owner's property rights?
Re: 0.0001%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Commons has around 6.5 million media files.
Someone who did a run-through of one of the main categories for such images (and its subcategories) gave an estimate of around 67k sex-related images, or at least images categorized as such. Let's assume, for the sake of it, that we're only getting maybe two-thirds of our sex-related images through categorization, and guess that we have 100k such images. With that assumption, convert 0.1M/6.5M to percentage, and you get ~1.5%.
So with a relatively wild overestimate, we get a small quantity, but not a negligible one. We're looking at on the order of 1% of all images. Considering how much importance our society places on sex (whether to embrace it or to revile it), I'm surprised we don't see more.
I'm divided on the issue, though. It's easy to attack Wales as a censor, (and certainly he deserves some attack for the autocratic position he's taking) but there has been a lot of crap content uploaded to Wikimedia Commons that features nudity, and I agree that even if you support porn, there's plenty that ought to be deleted just because the quality is so low. For example, there's a template [wikimedia.org] with boilerplate for telling people off for uploading penis pictures, because after receiving endless craptastic penis pictures (among, hopefully, some decent ones) there is no point in gathering more.
On the other hand, it's easy to attack porn. "Porn" is stigmatized because sexuality is so taboo in our culture. Calling a lot of the images here "porn" is misleading at best. Many of them may be sex-related, but aren't specifically "prurient" (e.g. anatomical images), and many more may be good examples under very particular educational domains, or particular subjects. The risk is that good images will be deleted, ones that do have redeeming value. But when attacking "porn", everything sounds all right, because suddenly one is taking a moral high road.
Sanger was trying to take a moral high road earlier, saying "OMG CHILD PORN" when there was nothing illegal about (certainly the FBI doesn't seem to care, so far). It's easy to attack something by labelling it as something widely reviled, because by labelling the problem as some such thing you change the focus of the argument. Anyone who says "well, is that actually porn/child porn/whatever?" can be labelled as supportive of porn/child porn/whatever, and the target is put on the defensive, because there is already a social acceptance of attacks on these things (whether that social acceptance is right or wrong—though certainly in the case of child porn it seems obviously right) and the attack merely consists of conflating the undesired idea with the target of the attack. It's fortunate that Sanger was so clumsy in his attempt, taking all-too-obvious pains to mention his (failing?) rival project and to publicize the letter, because through that we can recognize the obvious interest he has in making Wikipedia/Wikimedia out to be evil.
I'm inclined, for now, to let the campaign against "porn" on Commons go. Is it the best road? No, certainly not, because it's based on emotion, not particular objective criteria. But in the long run, an emphasis against poor-quality images portraying sex-related topics is probably a good thing: high-quality images should be preferred, and a strict limit lets the project take its own moral high ground against these sorts of "OMG PORN KILL IT WITH FIRE" discussions. Even if there's a huge purge today, there's always the potential to re-upload this stuff if it's worth the effort.
I don't want to take a particular stand either way on the definition of porn or whether it should be around, but what I urge is a rational consideration of the merits of either approach, without giving so much credence to purely emotive (or moralistic) arguments.
If there's any point I'd like to end with, it's that no solution will satisfy everyone. There will always be the purists who think that all porn is evil, and on the other side the purists who want to avoid all censorship, and every number of points of middle ground.
Disclosure: I'm a volunteer admin on Wikipedia (but *not* on Wikimedia Commons).
Re: 0.0001%? (Score:1, Insightful)
Since when is a naked vulva pornography, though?
Put another way: would it be OK to have one or two pictures of naked vulvas? If yes, then they're obviously not pornographic; and if they aren't, there's no reason why the other ones should be. One could say that Commons still doesn't NEED 100 pictures of naked vulvas, but that's a different issue entirely.
Of course, you could say no, it's not OK to have even one or two pictures of naked vulvas, but I think there's a consensus that a neutral picture illustrating human anatomy is a) not pornographic and b) encyclopedic (which might or might not be a criterion for Commons, but still).
Wales has got a point when he points to 18 USC 2257 record-keeping requirements; these are legal obligations that the WMF would have to meet in order to host certain pictures, and it's understandable that they don't want to (and, most likely, couldn't even if they did). But beyond that, if a picture has educational value of some sort (and I'd set the bar very low there!), it should be acceptable.
(There's some finer points still: for example, uploading 100 snapshots all showing the same scene and taken over the course of 5 minutes with hardly any variation would obviously be unnecessary. Similarly, as above, if you have a dozen pictures of the same thing, you might not need many more, unless the new ones bring something new to the table - higher artistic merit, for example. But there's a big difference between "none of this" and "not too much of this", and the latter would equally apply to all pictures, anyway.)
Re:does Wales still have any authority? (Score:4, Insightful)
Go look up the money available to a given company and then look at how much the federal budget is. The difference is staggering.
I think the figure we should look at is the amount of money that companies control in aggregate compared to the government.
Joseph Campbell said if you want to see who's in control in society, look at who has the biggest building. In ancient societies, it was a pyramid or ziggurat, controlled by a God/King/Priest. In Europe in the middle ages, the biggest buildings were cathedrals, run by the church. After the enlightenment, it was government buildings, and public buildings like railway stations. In today's world, it's office buildings run by corporations.