Wikipedia talk:Graphic and potentially disturbing images

Discussion moved to the main project page until the voting begins.

Too long and premature
The project page is now 150 kb. I think that's too long for most people to wade through. Also, the fact that there are so many proposals at least suggests that more discussion is needed to work toward a consensus, and that doing so would have been better before opening a vote. Maurreen 05:41, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Second that. It looks like the problem has not been well-enough defined, nor the criteria for potential solutions. Hence the common position of "first, do no harm". Perhaps the entire set of proposals should be archived (not inc discussion further down page), and we clarify the issue first. eg Problem: even in context, some images are (to a significant proportion of readers) unpleasant or offensive, to a degree which distracts from the body of the article; or unsuitable for children. Possible criteria:
 * 1) No removal from Wikipedia of material that is appropriate to an encylopedia ("no censorship")
 * 2) No complex classification systems ("simplicity")
 * 3) No significant new demands on the servers / modification of MediaWiki ("cost")
 * 4) User control (site-wide + per-image) over what images the user sees ("user control")
 * 5) Prevention of children (and others?) from accessing unsuitable material ("children")

Criteria may well conflict of course (eg it's hard to reconcile 1 and 5), but clarity on different possible/desirable ones would help us get better (and hopefully fewer!) proposals and maybe reach a conclusion. Rd232 14:30, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see some consideration for users who may have practical reasons not to be viewing some of the images under discussion. (Like "I might lose my job and/or be unable to find a job in my field if I were caught looking at this".) We definitely need to have some more discussion of the issues involved. This is very disorganized and seems to have been a bit too haphazardly-developed for a major vote to be taking place. It might be more useful to wait and see if we can agree on some criteria before bring up enormous numbers of specific proposals. -Aranel (" Sarah ") 03:30, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Guidelines instead of policy
I think this issue should be handled case by case, but that it could be good to develop guidelines. Maurreen 05:47, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Encyclopedic"
Maybe it would help to discuss what we see as "encyclopedic" or not.

I think it could be defined as what could typically be expected to be seen in other encyclopedias, general or specialized, or textbooks on the same subject. Maurreen 16:10, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bad vote
The vote page is flawed, too complicated, and being used for debate not decision. I will not vote and I will not feel bound by the result of such a mess. For what it is worth, my view is that images are not the same as text. However, I also think that the use of an image which is seen by some as offensive needs to be considered as potentially POV, in particular if its inclusion aims at pushing boundaries rather than steering Wikipedia's middle course. So its inclusion in an article can be edited to death, and then be subject to debate in the usual way, on an individual basis. I also want to be able to use Wikipedia at work and to be happy when my children use it, and I want others to feel the same way. --Henrygb 19:06, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Category:Possibly offensive images
I've nominated Category:Possibly offensive images for deletion. Any and all opinions about it are welcome. T IMBO  ( T A L K )  05:35, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

New proposal
I've proposed a system for descriptive tagging of image contents at Descriptive image tagging. --Carnildo 08:21, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Moved from Village pump (policy)
My activity was referred to in the above post on "Talk page spamming". Some people have objected "in the strongest terms" to my "utterly loutish, disgusting behavior" in trying to notify people of the fact that an issue that they had previously voted upon as an overwhelming majority was summarily ignored and circumvented by the relatively unnoticed actions of a very few others. I am posting a brief summary of some of the facts here for the perusal of a much broader audience. (This posting is a slight revision of a message that I posted to some user's talk pages, because they had expressed a strong majority opinion that was simply dismissed, ignored and almost immediately bypassed by the subsequent actions of others.) I made an attempt to contact many of the people who previously helped vote to delete a generally objectionable photograph by a vote of 88 to 21, and who might have been unaware that immediately after that image was voted to be deleted someone posted another which was very similar in content:Image:Autofellatio 2.jpg My objections to this, and the previous image that was voted to be deleted might be based upon reasons far different from any that they had, but I do object to it, and consider the posting of such images to be acts of asinine stupidity, which burdens the project and its major educational aims in ways that they should not be burdened, and can be extremely detrimental to the acceptance and growth of WIkipedia's use and influence. Those who I believe to be in the extreme minority of Wikipedians who would like to include these images, many who had been channeled to the voting page from the talk page of the article on Autofellatio with which it is associated had dominated the earliest voting. It was 23 Keeps to 12 Deletes as of the time that I composed the original message, but after I began to notify previous voters, things had shifted to 27 Keeps to 43 Deletes by my most recent count.

Though I fully support the photographs of human genitalia as appropriate and encyclopedic in their individual articles, the posting of photos of sexual or quasi-sexual activities, thus far seems to have been responsibly rejected, in deference to such general social customs as are nearly ubiquitous. It might also be necessary to begin making an effort to establish an explicit Wikipedia policy against explicit photographic depictions of humans engaged in such activities. To my limited knowledge such images have not been accepted as appropriate anywhere else within this project, and frankly I can strongly agree with many others that they should not be. Vitally important information that might be unwelcome by some is one thing that should never be deleted, but un-needed images that can eventually prevent or impede many thousands or millions of people from gaining access to the great mass of truly important information that Wikipedia provides is quite another matter. Some people are crying "foul" that I have brought this issue greater attention, others have expressed gratitude that they were not left in the dark. There are vitally important distinctions to be made between what is vitally important, what is trivial, and what is overwhelmingly detrimental in the aims of human education. Whatever anyone's reasons, or final decisions upon the matter, I am appealing for more input on the voting that is occurring at Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion, and further debate on developing explicit policy about such explicit photographs. ~ Achilles &#8224; 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * We already have a policy on such images: WP:NOT --Carnildo 19:23, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Written by the same clique that insists that we should include porn.203.103.60.119 03:27, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you for directing me to that admirable page, which also included the statements:


 * "Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy" & "Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with the purpose of 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." & "While obviously inappropriate content (such as inappropriate links to shock sites) is usually removed immediately, some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links, provided they do not violate any of our existing policies..."


 * It also contains others of note, and it seems that there is definitely a need for development of a clearer policy on some matters. ~ Achilles &#8224; 19:37, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the best attempt at such a solution exists at End-user image suppression. Demi T/C 22:15, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)


 * I wish more people understood the philosophy of "freedom is not license". --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 22:29, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I find myself agreeing with BOTH sides of this debate which makes me think that there is a creative solution that could satisfy everyone. What I'm thinking is for us to create an adult wiki site, perhaps "Wikisex", that would have explicit articles, pictures and whatnot all devoted to sex. Any questionable postings on Wikipedia could be moved to Wikisex. Wikipedia could be a trusted site by the parental control software, and Wikisex would be blocked. Everyone can be happy. -- Samuel Wantman 03:54, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See also: Sexual harassment. Hyacinth 04:12, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I like Samuel Wantman's idea. Maurreen 06:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Coming into this as a person with little interest in writing sex articles, but someone who is strongly worried by censorship, I'd ask the proposers of wikisex to please classify the following subjects breast cancer, nipple, penis, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, sex, fetish, masturbation, fellatio, autofellatio, explaining what hard and fast rule will divide topics between wikipedia and wikisex. Consider that parental control software does censor access to breast cancer information.

Merely the fact that such censorship is included in parental control software along with the knowledge that such software censors access to certain reasonably mainstream political sites and to sites of organisations opposed to parental control software means that it would be totally inappropriate for wikipedia to cooperate in any way with the makers of such software since, in that case we would be endorsing unacceptable censorship. Mozzerati 07:36, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)

Have you people read the voluminous discussions on Wikipedia and censorship over the years, and seen the regular failure of proposals to classify/censor/separate out content that some people find objectionable but is otherwise relevant encyclopedic material? Nor are you the first to raise the point that filters may block Wikipedia. There was no support for having Wikipedia inclusion policies decided by filter writers then. Given the enormous growth in Wikipedia's popularity since, changing our content to keep them happy makes even less sense - a filter that blocks Wikipedia in its entirety is likely to hurt the company selling the filter a heck of a lot more than it hurts Wikipedia. --Robert Merkel 08:21, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes I've read many of the discussion. What I'm looking to come up with is something that finds a common ground between not cooperating with censorship, while at the same time removing things that many would find objectionable in an encyclopedia.  I think about my upbringing which was very progressive and uncensored, yet I never saw an image like that until I was in my late teens.  I can understand why a parent might want to keep their 7 year olds from coming accross such images.  I don't have children, but I look after a 5 year old every week.  I'm not about to show her my porn collection!  I'll respect her parents wishes about such things until she's much older.


 * It bothers me very much that the subjects mentioned are censored by parential control software, and I in no way want to hobble Wikipedia the same way. I do not think we should remove any of those topics from wikipedia.  What I am proposing is to draw a clear line, which is perhaps as stated above, no " posting of photos of sexual or quasi-sexual activities".  Instead, they would be posted at Wikisex and there could be links to those images from Wikipedia.  I'd like Wikisex to have much more than images, I'd say "anything goes" as long as it applies to sex.


 * If we make a clear line, then perhaps we can influence the software makers to adopt the same line as an less extreme option to offer parents. Wikipedia is big enough to influence where this line is.  Wikipedia could be a site that parents could trust for information without the 'shocking' photos (and we'd create a great non-commercial sex site).  Can't this be win-win? -- Samuel Wantman 08:27, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I think the test should be whether the images provide usefull information relevent to an encyclopedia. Also if an image could just as well be replaced by one which has less capacity for offence (without removing usefull information) then it should be.  I don't think we need have any stricter policy than that.  I would note that most pornography would fail this test anyway as would most disturbing pictures.  Barnaby dawson 08:59, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If there were a Wikisex created as Samuel suggests, does anyone else worry that it might become a bit icky? Informative content on sexual issues is one thing, and quite reasonable even with nudity, shocking photos and all. However, I would greatly worry that Wikisex would degenerate into a free porno warehouse for adolescent teenagers. And given all the money that gets spent on pornography anyway, WikiMedia probably doesn't need to be donating resources to such an project. To say nothing of the public relations and legal problems that a "wikiporno" could create. Dragons flight 22:27, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Typical
I'll bet the reason why this was rejected was because of wanting a clear conscience. Now, it's true, the human body is beautiful. But some of the images, although drawn, are of a pornographic nature. They didn't want pornography, so they renamed it, made it ok to look at sexually explicit images. This is why so many people voted for History of Erotic Images to be a featured article. No one wants to feel guilty. This just says porn is ok. --Yancyfry 05:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)