Wales Supports Purging Porn From Wikipedia

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."

Comments

Damn the Welsh!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it's not sheep.

does Wales still have any authority?

[Trepidity]

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.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[Moryath]

I personally think he should be forced to read this 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:does Wales still have any authority?

[Rogerborg]

Oh, thanks, I'd forgotten about the Sex for Edits storm in a B-cup.

Presumably all you have to do to get your content the Jimbo stamp of approval is to "fuck his brains out all night". Don't all queue up at once.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[the phantom]

Neither Wales, nor Wikia, nor Wikipedia are the US government, hence the first amendment applies to them only insofar as the government cannot limit their speech. They have no obligation to protect anyone else's speech. They can censor whatever they want, whenever they want, for any reason that they want.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[ultranova]

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?

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[ArsonSmith]

No.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[geekoid]

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:does Wales still have any authority?

[Wog]

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?

[rilian4]

No corporation, regardless of size, has remotely close to the power of the federal government. Go look up the money available to a given company and then look at how much the federal budget is. The difference is staggering.

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:does Wales still have any authority?

[Arthur Grumbine]

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:does Wales still have any authority?

[lawpoop]

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.

Of course...

[TheRaven64]

If Wikipedia has porn, it competes with Wales' other web site, he wouldn't want that...

Re:Of course...

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Is there a comprehensive list of the disputed site? It's raining today and I can evaluate each page to see if it's truely pornographic. Thanx in advance. //gets lotion

Free Porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the currently hosted porn Creative Commons Licensed? Under what conditions has it been produced? Is it commercial trailers, or home made?
I support destroying the porn industry, by spreading the habit making porn at home and spreading it under a CC license.

Re:Free Porn?

[celibate for life]

Hey, some of us like the professional stuff. Amateur porn has too many pimples and zits.

Re:Free Porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Still better than the millionth run-of-the-mill actress with the same boob, mouth and nose job (surgery, not sexual act), dully fucking their way through a never changing script of positions, all the while moaning the same fake sounds for 15 minutes straight, which makes you think they're just running a sound loop.

Re:"too much unnecessary porn"

[Spazztastic]

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...

[Capt James McCarthy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo

Censorship is a slippery slop.

Re:Start with this then...

[tehcyder]

So what have you got against amputee porn in particular?

Re:Start with this then...

[SharpFang]

Amputee porn... yuck! Must be removed!

Re:Start with this then...

[cyp43r]

You thought the VENUS DE MILO would be clothed?

Re:Start with this then...

[Ephemeriis]

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 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.

I can't explain what pr0n is...

[Airdorn]

...but I know it when I see it.

Re:I can't explain what pr0n is...

[tehcyder]

I think you mean "...but I know it when I come across it."

didn't jimmy wales get his start in internet porn?

[circletimessquare]

and there it is, on wikipedia:

Inspired by the remarkable initial public offering of Netscape in 1995, he decided to become an internet entrepreneur,[11] and in 1996 founded the web portal Bomis with two partners.[9][16] The website featured user-generated webrings and for a time sold erotic photographs.[17] Wales described it as a "guy-oriented search engine" with a market similar to that of Maxim magazine;[1][7][18] and according to The Atlantic Monthly it "found itself positioned as the Playboy of the Internet".[16] Bomis did not become successful, but in March 2000 hosted and provided the initial funding for the Nupedia project.[7][9][19]

Let him go.

[hellop2]

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.

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.

Re:Let him go.

[Spazztastic]

Heh, my friend and I were laughing last week when her textbook cited wikipedia...

Wikipedia can be used as a starting point for learning a subject though. If you don't want to dive into a thick textbook or several case studies on a topic, you can read Wikipedia and get a rundown on what the topic is. If you feel the need (or are doing a project), then you can investigate further and read the textbook or case study and use those as citations.

This is all what the librarians in High School would tell my class. Nothing wrong with using it as a starting point, but it can't be the only source of information.

As a Slashdotter to Mr. Sanger

[eldavojohn]

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 of them 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 for it to be used as such. What about when someone draws or makes computer simulations 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 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:"too much unnecessary porn"

[celibate for life]

"Necessary" is a concept that varies according to each person. To me, my 47 porn DVDs are the necessary amount.

Re:"too much unnecessary porn"

[jedidiah]

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.

WP:CENSOR?

[tverbeek]

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.

Oh noes porn!

[MostAwesomeDude]

I'm tempted to upload photos of S&M to the relevant articles now, since he seems to think they're always okay to speedy-delete, even when they're not sexual. From the link:

"Content which would trigger for the uploader or anyone else the record keeping requirements of USC 2257 can be speedy deleted. This refers to photographs and film - all other artistic media is excluded from this requirement, unless derivative of one of those - of actual or simulated acts of... 4. Sadistic or masochistic abuse."

I might not be a leather fan, but that doesn't make it okay to remove this kind of stuff.

(And before you say that this only applies to WMF, not WP, keep in mind that they are the same entity! It won't be long before this policy trickles over into the various language WPs.)

And this...

[AnonymousClown]

This book depicts incest and child sexual acts and it should be the first to go. It also promotes hate crimes against homo sexuals, slavery and violence towards women.

Re:"too much unnecessary porn"

[Ephemeriis]

Of course this is a big fat social red herring with the biggest problem being the nailing down of exactly what porn is.

I'm honestly too lazy to look up the textbook definition right now... But the fine summary has it pretty close to right.

images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests

The problem is, somebody has to evaluate what constitutes educational value and then quantify it somehow and then measure it against some kind of quantified prurient interest.

For someone who's looking for information on how to safely practice bondage or erotic asphyxiation, the pictures might be of high educational value. Might even save a life.

For someone who's just clicking through random articles on Wikipedia and stumbles across naked people it may look like straight-up smut with with no redeeming qualities.

Traditionally, it's been up to the community to decide what constitutes porn, generally on a fairly local level. If something winds up going to court it's usually up to your peers to decide whether there's educational content or not.

But with something like Wikipedia there's really no such thing as local. Or, rather, everything is local.

I'm sure there are folks somewhere in the world who consider the simple line drawings depicting how to give yourself a breast self-exam absolute filth. But most of us here in the US probably think that's of fairly high educational value.

So what do you do? Do you take down the self-exam diagram because you've offended someone on the planet?

Do you leave up something almost universally-prurient because somebody out there might find it educational?

Re:"too much unnecessary porn"

[Xest]

I was going to ask how you manage to resist and remain celibate for life, now I know.

Re:"too much unnecessary porn"

[L4t3r4lu5]

Would you like the answer expressed in Libraries of Congress, or Pallets of Kleenex?

Re:What a douche bag...

[mmkkbb]

He's not talking about Wikipedia. He's talking about Wikimedia Commons, which already needs a specific warning template asking people to please refrain from adding Yet More Pictures Of Users' Cocks Because We Have Enough Already Thank You.

Re:Porn according to whom?

[Penguin]

.. and to elaborate on this subject; I could upload every random picture I shoot with my camera or any picture my webcam takes every five seconds.

In that case it makes perfect sense to remove a lot of these pictures even though some randomly might happen to contain something interesting one day.

Re:Who's Sue?

[thedj_sd]

Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Gardner

0.0001%?

[jurgen]

So Wikimedia Commons is being overwhelmed by porn, the way Usenet was 10-15 years ago, right? Well, I'd love to see some of it, but I can't seem to find it. A search for "porn" turns up i.e. pictures of pornographic actresses, almost all clothed (an occasional one topless). "Pussy" turns up some pictures of pussycats, "teats" turns up nothing because people can't spell, "tits" and "penis" finds some stuff that's highly anatomical, "fucking" gives as its top result a fucking couple... of flies! In short, if there's any porn in Wikimedia, it's less than 1 in a million.

It seems to be all just Jimmy Wales trying to get some publicity and one-upping Larry Sanger. The whole thing is even more pathetic than Larry Sanger's original fantasy-rant.

Alright people, nothing to see here...

Re: 0.0001%?

[ChienAndalu]

Try looking up "Vulva" or "Vagina" (I can't since I'm at work). Last time I checked (when the german wikipedia chose to use the "vulva" article with a hairy "muschi" as the article of the day) there were more than a hundred closeup vagina images. No I personally don't object to that, but I think it is unnecessary. The slashdot crowd might be very... open-minded about porn, but the question is if the majority of the people who donate to the Wikimedia foundation is as well.

Oxymoron?

[Mikkeles]

... unnecessary porn ...

Porn with no educational value is already verboten

[Explodicle]

It's not an encyclopedia. Wales is discussing Wikimedia Commons, a related but seperate project from Wikipedia. They've already got a whole team of people who debate over what is acceptable or not at Commons:Deletion requests. This isn't about what should or should not be included - porn with no informative purpose is already subject to deletion. What Wales is calling for is a greater effort to reduce them.

May 2010

[Explodicle]

Nopenis.svg

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Wikimedia Commons, a non-profit media repository with the primary scope of providing educational and informative images and media. Submissions that are low quality or do not fall into Commons' scope may be subject to deletion. One or more of your recent contributions has been identified by another Commons user as a possible image not in Commons' scope. Commons has guidelines on nudity, as a result of already having a large number of photos of genitalia, specifically the male reproductive system and the penis. If you have objections to the proposed deletion of your image(s), please see the links to the relevant deletion discussion(s) (listed above or below this message box). This message is not intended to be taken personally. Thank you for your understanding. --Explodicle


This is a real warning people get for uploading too much cock onto Commons.

Re:May 2010

[discord5]

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:"too much unnecessary porn"

[Degro]

Sounds like you work for the SEC

Wrong Wales

[harlows_monkeys]

When I saw the headline, I thought it was about Welsh porn, and figured they just wanted to save resources. A list of Welsh porn would take up way too much space, with titles like "Goleuddydd does Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch".