The toothbrush image has been nominated for deletion several times, and has been kept each time. People (including the director of Wikimedia UK) have tried to rename it, so it wouldn't come up like this, and the renaming has been undone by administrators. The image was used in English Wikipedia, in the article "pervertible". That article has now been deleted. However, this use (which began during the most recent deletion request) enables people to say that the image has "potential educational use because it was used in Wikipedia". Anything with "potential educational use", or that has ever been inserted in a Wikipedia article, will not be deleted.
The thread heading is bone-headed by the way. I for one am not a religious person.
Again, you can have people crowdsourcing lists according to various criteria, and give people the option to import them into their account settings.
I am sure there would be people around who would be happy to develop filter lists.
There was a lot of negative pushback on anything to do with filtering.:) But at the end of the day, we cannot show bestiality videos to kids, and expect to survive in the court of public opinion. Especially while implying that we are trying to help children in the third world with Wikipedia. Have you seen Larry's YouTube video?
Using factual labels, or the Commons category system, was actually the idea. Another part of the idea was letting users and user groups compile filter lists according to their own preferences, by adding individual files or categories. In other words, have people crowdsource filter lists, according to various criteria. Other users would then be able to pick these filter lists and add them to their own Wikimedia account, adapt them as appropriate, etc. In other words, a filter list would be much like an editor's watchlist – something totally personal and private that each editor could adjust as they wished. There would be no pre-defined filters from the Wikimedia side. See e.g. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Brainstorming#Reformulation_of_the_Proposal:_Personal_filter_lists and other, similar proposals on that page.
What astonishes me about these discussions is that everyone argues from first principles, as though Wikimedia were the first outfit ever to have a website with some adult content. They're not. There're well-established conventions around hosting adult content that all major players adhere to -- except Wikimedia.
I see no one complaining about Google Safe Search, or Flickr's Restricted category, or YouTube's 18 rating, but when the question is asked why Wikimedia isn't doing what everybody else does, a hue and a cry is raised as though Wikimedia were asked to do something completely unreasonable that had never been asked of anyone else on the Internet before.
Just remember: Wikimedia growing adult content includes videos showing dog-on-nun sex, glory holes, and homo- and heterosexual penetration of any orifice imaginable, material that is attracting hundreds of thousands of page views. No other website would make this sort of thing available unfiltered, and get away with advertising itself as helping little girls in Africa.
It's all well and good to have articles about these topics (although some of them are rather poorly written, and have been so for years). But anonymous Wikimedians are getting these images from an age-restricted section of Flickr, and are then sticking them into a non-age-restricted encyclopedia widely used by schoolchildren. Helpful templates like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sex and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:BDSM added at the bottom of articles lead enquiring minds to illustrated pages on every sexual kink in existence.
Wikimedia hosts sexually explicit material without any of the contributors adding and managing this material on Wikimedia sites having the legally required records for 18 USC 2257 compliance. Hundreds of uploads are just pure exhibitionism of Wikimedia contributors taking videos and photos of their dicks, or of themselves masturbating in their bathrooms.
You are badly overthinking this. No other mainstream website shows you a woman masturbating with a toothbrush as a top result when you search for an image of a toothbrush, or a picture of a torn-off foot when you are looking for foot.
No. Showing children an unfiltered bestiality video, or images of women drinking their own urine, is not just an evolution of children looking up genitals.
No. You can be searching for an image of a toothbrush or for a picture of a tennis backhand and you end up being shown sexual images, both in Wikipedia and in Commons.
See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Problems
The video of the nun having sex with a dog comes up as a top result for any French schoolchild entering devoirs (homework) or vacances (holidays) as a search term in Commons, or as a file search term in Wikipedia
Slashdot Mirror
The toothbrush image has been nominated for deletion several times, and has been kept each time. People (including the director of Wikimedia UK) have tried to rename it, so it wouldn't come up like this, and the renaming has been undone by administrators. The image was used in English Wikipedia, in the article "pervertible". That article has now been deleted. However, this use (which began during the most recent deletion request) enables people to say that the image has "potential educational use because it was used in Wikipedia". Anything with "potential educational use", or that has ever been inserted in a Wikipedia article, will not be deleted.
The thread heading is bone-headed by the way. I for one am not a religious person.
Again, you can have people crowdsourcing lists according to various criteria, and give people the option to import them into their account settings. I am sure there would be people around who would be happy to develop filter lists.
There was a lot of negative pushback on anything to do with filtering. :) But at the end of the day, we cannot show bestiality videos to kids, and expect to survive in the court of public opinion. Especially while implying that we are trying to help children in the third world with Wikipedia. Have you seen Larry's YouTube video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE4Z9qunAc4
He didn't even use the worst results he could have.
Here is a YouTube video that explains this in some more detail:
"Does Wikipedia have a porn problem? Dad investigates."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE4Z9qunAc4
Using factual labels, or the Commons category system, was actually the idea. Another part of the idea was letting users and user groups compile filter lists according to their own preferences, by adding individual files or categories. In other words, have people crowdsource filter lists, according to various criteria. Other users would then be able to pick these filter lists and add them to their own Wikimedia account, adapt them as appropriate, etc. In other words, a filter list would be much like an editor's watchlist – something totally personal and private that each editor could adjust as they wished. There would be no pre-defined filters from the Wikimedia side. See e.g. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Brainstorming#Reformulation_of_the_Proposal:_Personal_filter_lists and other, similar proposals on that page.
What astonishes me about these discussions is that everyone argues from first principles, as though Wikimedia were the first outfit ever to have a website with some adult content. They're not. There're well-established conventions around hosting adult content that all major players adhere to -- except Wikimedia.
I see no one complaining about Google Safe Search, or Flickr's Restricted category, or YouTube's 18 rating, but when the question is asked why Wikimedia isn't doing what everybody else does, a hue and a cry is raised as though Wikimedia were asked to do something completely unreasonable that had never been asked of anyone else on the Internet before.
Just remember: Wikimedia growing adult content includes videos showing dog-on-nun sex, glory holes, and homo- and heterosexual penetration of any orifice imaginable, material that is attracting hundreds of thousands of page views. No other website would make this sort of thing available unfiltered, and get away with advertising itself as helping little girls in Africa.
Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Free_Ride
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-throating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_torture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_and_ball_torture_(sexual_practice)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Old_Naughty_Days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogtie_bondage
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Urolagnia&oldid=473408110
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_play
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_bondage
It's all well and good to have articles about these topics (although some of them are rather poorly written, and have been so for years). But anonymous Wikimedians are getting these images from an age-restricted section of Flickr, and are then sticking them into a non-age-restricted encyclopedia widely used by schoolchildren. Helpful templates like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sex and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:BDSM added at the bottom of articles lead enquiring minds to illustrated pages on every sexual kink in existence.
Neutrality means reflecting real-world views in accurate proportions, rather than adopting a fringe position. Wikipedia is the only mainstream site that does not have an adult filter. It pinches thousands of private sexual images from Flickr, where they are behind an age-18 wall, and puts them in public view on Wikimedia sites, without even asking Flickr account holders for their consent: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3ADeletion_requests%2FFile%3ATasting_a_condom.jpg&diff=67108318&oldid=66957446
Wikimedia provides unfiltered access to a bestiality video in response to a harmless search term like "devoirs" (homework) or "vacances" (holidays).
The first search result when entering toothbrush as a search term shows a woman masturbating with one: http://tch995319.tch.www.quora.com/Why-is-the-second-image-returned-on-Wikimedia-Commons-when-one-searches-for-electric-toothbrush-an-image-of-a-female-masturbating
Wikimedia hosts sexually explicit material without any of the contributors adding and managing this material on Wikimedia sites having the legally required records for 18 USC 2257 compliance. Hundreds of uploads are just pure exhibitionism of Wikimedia contributors taking videos and photos of their dicks, or of themselves masturbating in their bathrooms.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Masturbation.gif
How is that jerky (pun intended) video realistically useful for an educational purpose?
See the images listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BADIMAGES
See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Problems for random image searches on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons bringing up adult material
See http://wikipediocracy.com/2012/04/11/wikimedia-commons-pornography-concerns-just-right-wing-prudery/
You are badly overthinking this. No other mainstream website shows you a woman masturbating with a toothbrush as a top result when you search for an image of a toothbrush, or a picture of a torn-off foot when you are looking for foot.
Videos of Commons contributors masturbating in their bedrooms to the point of ejaculation are not just "nude pictures".
No. Showing children an unfiltered bestiality video, or images of women drinking their own urine, is not just an evolution of children looking up genitals.
No. You can be searching for an image of a toothbrush or for a picture of a tennis backhand and you end up being shown sexual images, both in Wikipedia and in Commons. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Problems The video of the nun having sex with a dog comes up as a top result for any French schoolchild entering devoirs (homework) or vacances (holidays) as a search term in Commons, or as a file search term in Wikipedia