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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."

17 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Damn the Welsh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least it's not sheep.

  2. does Wales still have any authority? by Trepidity · · 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.

    1. Re:does Wales still have any authority? by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:does Wales still have any authority? by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    3. Re:does Wales still have any authority? by ultranova · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  3. Start with this then... by Capt+James+McCarthy · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    Censorship is a slippery slop.

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    There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
    1. Re:Start with this then... by tehcyder · · Score: 5, Funny

      So what have you got against amputee porn in particular?

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      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    2. Re:Start with this then... by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Funny

      Amputee porn... yuck! Must be removed!

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      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    3. Re:Start with this then... by cyp43r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You thought the VENUS DE MILO would be clothed?

  4. As a Slashdotter to Mr. Sanger by eldavojohn · · 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 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.

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    My work here is dung.
  5. Re:"too much unnecessary porn" by celibate+for+life · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  6. Re:"too much unnecessary porn" by jedidiah · · 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.

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    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  7. WP:CENSOR? by tverbeek · · 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.

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    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  8. Re:I can't explain what pr0n is... by tehcyder · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  9. Re:Free Porn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  10. Re:"too much unnecessary porn" by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
  11. May 2010 by Explodicle · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.