Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedians for encyclopedic merit/Working standard for encyclopedic merit of images

Offensive Photographs
''Sometimes, a photograph may be considered offensive or in poor taste, for example, if the article is about parts of the human anatomy, such as breast, penis, or clitoris. In those cases, a stylized photograph or drawing may be the way to go.''


 * I object to this advice. Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. More importantly, any prohibition on realistic pictures of any human anatomy destroys the educational value of the picture.  We show medical students realistic pictures (and actual examples) of all parts of the human body, so they can know what they are supposed to look like, have an understanding of the range of phenotypes, and have a better understanding of the details of physiology.  I don't see any reason why the general public shouldn't be entitled to the best quality information on these subjects, as well.  Also, this particular list is associated with a particular value system, which not all Wikipedia readers share.  Some find pictures of any female anatomy, including uncovered heads and ankles, to be quite offensive. -- Beland 19:04, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

''anything considered hardcore pornography should be illustrated, not photographed. As defined by Wikipedia hardcore pornography is "hardcore or X-rated pornography contains close-ups of aroused genitalia and sexual activities including penetration"''


 * I object to this definition. First of all, images of aroused genitalia can be medically informative in the context of anatomy articles.  See, for example, Penis, which has one picture illustrating the anatomical difference between an erect and a flacid penis.  An illustration of this would leave out  significant physiological details, such as frenulums.


 * Secondly, regarding depictions of actual sex acts. Wikipedia's purpose is not entertainment, though we do have articles which happened to be entertaining because of their subject matter.  Obviously, depictions of sex acts are pretty much going to be illustrative only of articles that describe sex acts.  For some readers, pictures of sex acts will be sexually arousing, but then, so will the textual descriptions of sex acts in these articles.  Our purpose is not to minimize the entertainment value of our articles (sexual or otherwise), but to maximize their informativeness.  Many people visit porn articles for fun, though that's true for pretty much every other article we have.  But other people visit out of idle curiousity (e.g. they saw a link and clicked on it) or out of non-prurient interest for information.  Some people may be familiar with the various controversies surrounding pornography (free speech, zoning, morality, exploitation of women, exploitation of minors, etc.) and come here seeking more information.  Others may simply be ignorant of the various sex acts, and come here seeking general information, or even information which may help them perform the acts.  The general public (at least in the United States) does not get much exposure to realistic depictions of sex acts or pornography, and as a result, have many misconceptions about them. For instance, many people think that gay sex always involves leather fetishism or cross-dressing.  Such misconceptions are often produced by people's imaginations filling in hidden details.  A realistic image depicting a typical act which is the subject of the article, leaving little to the imagination (unlike an illustration) helps prevent such misconceptions.  In the context of political debates, seeing the actual subject of the controversy can be quite useful. "Oh, that's what all this fuss is about?"  On the other hand, it's not encyclopedic to try to shock people, and it doesn't serve the interests of information-seeking (rather than pleasure-seeking) readers if their first reaction to a page view is ("Egads!  I really didn't need to see that!") and they have to stop reading.


 * In short, I think it's useful to include realistic photos in articles describing sex acts. These photos should in general be more typical than unusual or shocking, and should be chosen to clearly illustrate the concept, not necessarily to be pleasurable to look at.  To accommodate situations where a significant fraction of readers would be shocked by such realistic pictures, I think putting an illustration directly in the article and a realistic photo a click away is an acceptable compromise which can serve the interest of all readers.


 * The decision of the community to maintain a realistic picture illustrating autofellatio, but put a drawn illustration in the article itself, shows that this compromise is workable. It also shows that a policy banning such realistic pictures will not be acceptable to the community.  Oral sex also has a reasonable and informative realistic photo illustration. -- Beland 21:07, 17 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with Beland. WP:NOT censored. An encyclopedia should also cover topics related to sex or obscenity (not to mention human biology and reproduction), and illustrations can be helpful in those topics as well as any others. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 10:25, August 23, 2005 (UTC)


 * At the same time, however, it makes sense to require that to access such images, one should get the oppourtunity to click through some sort of warning. This would also solve the penis on the user page vandalism. Perhaps if a category of pictures were taged as "NSFW," and said pictures couldn't be inlined....Hipocrite 16:10, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm very happy with the discussion that has begun here, and hope I can make some comments that will help make some progress with this project. I'd encourage you to look at a couple of discussions that have taken place at Talk:Doggy style and Talk:List of sex positions that have a lot of relevance to this discussion. My opinions are basically put forward on those pages, but I'll reiterate them here: While Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors, I also believe this does not encourage us to be explicit, but rather encourages us to be as explicit as is necessary to demonstrate the topic. This being said, I think the compromise suggested above is a good one: for the pages describing sexual acts, put informative drawings on the main pages, and allow more explicit (i.e.- informative live action) images to be one click away, with some sort of warning. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 17:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S.- I'm especially happy that this project encourages Wikipeidans to be more civil. It's quite frustrating to see people (including myself) being accused of censorship or being prudes simply because they hold slightly different standards for what Wikipedia should be. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 17:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

New and Unique
The proposed guideline states "It should add new and unique information to the article it is to be used in."

I disagree that it should be new. It should be unique and illustrative of significant portions of the article, but it should complement rather than introduce new material. The Star of David for example is a good illustration - it illustrates the text, something that text is not able to accomplish. In addition, the illustration at Human is ideal in explaining and illusrating the text. I recommend we change to guideline to the follwoing:


 * "It should illustrate article content or provide unique information to the article that is not inherent in the text."

I'd also like to add the following:


 * "It should be an image that could be found in a public library or other research locale at a place of learning"

This would allow nudity for those who would like it, while allowing for some self-restraint on images that would keep us from being censored at public libraries and/or higher places of learning

Thoughts? -Visorstuff 19:55, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * There is a huge variance among "public libraries", from say, the San Francisco Public Library, which has a dedicated LGBT section, to a small-town library in Kansas, to an open-to-the-public library at a Christian university, to a public library in Saudi Arabia. Anything that's in actually Wikipedia could be found at most libraries in the US, since Wikipedia can be found on the Internet.  Comparing Wikipedia to print materials is not all that appropriate, since some things, like say, animations, are somewhat unique to the web. -- Beland 07:04, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Bold rewrite
I've been bold and rewritten both sections of this proposal. My goal has been to attempt a balance or compromise between the legitimate desire to ensure that images are used in a relevant and appropriate manner, and the standing policy that Wikipedia is not censored.

If this proposal is actually intended to be about encyclopedic merit (and is not simply an attempt to sneak censorship of sexual topics in under the radar), then I hope that this rewrite will be useful toward the goal. To this end I have pointedly used examples drawn from violent content as well as sexual, since this is the other category of "offensive" content that is sometimes complained of. --FOo 15:57, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I love you additions, and have included my thoughts as well. -Visorstuff 16:05, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Can you explain what this addition of yours means? "It should be an image that could be found in a public library or other research locale at a place of learning"


 * In the tradition of higher education I was taught, any field of human experience is subject to study. There are, therefore, images of war and torture, human external and internal anatomy, the process of slaughtering animals for food, exhibitions of racism and prejudice, explicitly depicted sexual acts including rather wildly eccentric ones, highly controversial artworks including ones that have been accused of blasphemy (Robert Mapplethorpe) and of child pornography (Jock Sturges), and many other images that are likely to offend, to be found in places of learning.


 * Indeed, I would be surprised if we could describe a class of images that would not be found in any place of learning. It is much more useful to talk about the context and relevance of images within Wikipedia articles, rather than to try to declare that some certain images would never be acceptable regardless of context. --FOo 19:44, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

(Please read my entire post below before reacting to it - it needs the full context). As a point of clarification, you may want to read my note above, including the external link. I think we should keep things at a level that would not be censored at a university. If the goal of wikipedia is to educate and provide education content, but we are banned at every U.S., Asian, European or other international universities because of gratuitous violence, shock images or extreme sexual material we are going against Wikipedia's stated goals - see my comments at, Jimbo's comments here, and here. Therefore, the guideline would be that if it is not appropriate for a univeristy or library, it's probably not appropriate for here.

In saying this, I understand that various editors locales will have different standards on what would be included in a univeristy or public library. That is fine - and those editors should edit according to their own understanding, their own community standards and ethics, etc. But it gives a guideline for those editors who would rather post pictures of someone eating feces, etc. that is really not something you'd find in most places of learning, but rather in a free-for-all bulletin board. Second, I realize that most topics could be studied at any place of learning - so this guideline is a formality in keeping most things from being censored. You'd be suprised at what you can study at UC Berkeley, and that is fine. This guideline would not only limit censoring, but limit people who do primary research on wikipedia (see What Wikipedia is not) - as if it is not available in other places, and therefore should not appear here. Third, I realilze that there will still be places that will ban Wikipedia because of its uncensored editing process. That is fine too, but we should limit this as much as we can. People should adhere to their own community ethics, and I believe most will adhere to this general guideline. I find the statement neutral to those who want to limit censorship, as well as those who want to keep extreme material out of wikipedia. It is not so neutral as to be irrelevant, but is a good neutral guideline.

This policy helps support those who want to limit censorship, as well as provides guidelines on what images would be appropriate withing Wikipedia articles. Both sides are equally treated with the guideline. I look forward to your thoughts... -Visorstuff 20:30, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * On your first point, I'd like to draw your attention to an observation that's been made several times in different forums including the WikiEN-L mailing list: there has not been a single documented case of Wikipedia being blocked or "censored", except on a page-by-page or even image-by-image basis, by any public educational institution.


 * Wikipedia has been around for a little while now. It has been openly editable for its entire history, including the ability to upload images. I would venture to guess that many, if not most, professors and teachers at schools with Internet access have had some exposure to Wikipedia. And yet we have not heard of Wikipedia being blocked. Universities in particular are not in the business of censoring their students or their faculty.


 * I think the worry about Wikipedia being blocked from students' access is basically a worry or insecure feeling which we don't need to carry too far. It's entirely reasonable to think, "What will people think of Wikipedia?" But so far there has been no sign that "what people think of us" is "block them, ban them, kick our students out for reading them". The threat is a paper tiger, and becomes even less credible over time, as Wikipedia becomes more popular and reliable as a source. A school which blocked Wikipedia would really be making a statement about that school's own intolerance, not about Wikipedia's content.


 * To discuss your specific example: I am hard-pressed to think of an article on Wikipedia that would be enhanced by an image of someone eating feces. Articles such as coprophagia for instance chiefly deal with that act as a behavior of animals such as dogs and rabbits. Moreover, I do expect that in the library of a large university one might indeed find images of such; for instance in a book dealing with the sociology of extreme sexual fetishes, or some form of mental illness; so the "would you find it in a library or place of research?" criterion would not support that image's removal.


 * Indeed, such an image would not even have the defense available to it that the infamous autofellatio photograph did. That photograph was found useful by many editors because it proved that the act was physically possible. Such proof is not needed for coprophagia, since it is clearly possible for a person to eat feces.


 * Finally, it strikes me as overall very likely indeed that any addition of an image of human coprophagia to an article -- even coprophagia -- would be ruled as being so overwhelmingly distracting from the article's content that it would in no wise improve the article. Also, historically such images have been added by trolls or vandals; that is, not by editors acting in good faith. Normal anti-vandalism measures apply, including speedy deletion. --FOo 21:58, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I am still concerned about the future possibility of censorship. Libraries my not limit now, but they may in the future. Should we not plan for all possible outcomes in writing this policy or only address the current issues at hand? I think the planning is equally important - and makes the policy seem more fair to both the anti-censorship and anti-indecent image folks.

I do agree with many of your points, but still feel that the proposed policy gives guidelines to most editors. Do you think it is without merit? Does it not provide a guideline that is acceptable, or do you just think it overstates the obvious? -Visorstuff 23:53, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * In regards to your first point: The fact that libraries and universities are today vehement supporters of free speech should suggest to us that they will continue to be so in the future -- not the opposite. I hear you saying that their present support of freedom is unreliable, and somehow should serve as reason to expect future opposition toward freedom. In this, I disagree totally.


 * In regards to your second: I see this guideline as serving two purposes. First, it is to encourage people to see the issue of placing or removing an image in specific terms ("Is this image useful in this article?") rather than in absolute ones ("Is this image pornography? Is removing it censorship?"). Second, it is to lay out some of the issues around the difference between editorial judgment and actually censorious behavior -- in other words, to apply the NPOV principle to the issue of the use of controversial images. --FOo 01:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I should better clarify - should we keep the addition to the guideline that states: "It should be an image that could be found in a public library or other research locale at a place of learning?" Or is it redundant/overstates the obvious. I think it has merit, regardless of assumptions, as stated above. -Visorstuff 16:09, 25 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Basically, I don't think it expresses any restriction, since any image could be found in a research locale at a place of learning. However, it invites people to express prejudices about what is "real" learning and what is not -- e.g. "Women's studies classes that study 'pornography' as a social phenomenon aren't 'real' learning" -- so I think it should probably not be there. --FOo 17:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)