Commons talk:Sexual content: Difference between revisions

This project page was nominated for deletion on 1 January 2009 but was kept. If you are thinking about re-nominating it for deletion, please read that discussion first.

  Commons talk:Sexual content/Archive1

Just a small note here to offer strong support for the work which is recommencing here in regard to clarifying and possibly tightening up practices on commons - it seems like a good direction to me :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 22:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When I originally wrote these proposals, I felt that a small sensible step would be to encourage people not to create galleries of naughty pics, and in fact to prohibit sexual content from userspace here - there was a related proposal to limit sexual content to article space over on en. Whilst I would still support such a measure, I don't think it's as central or important as the other 2 proposals, so I've trimmed it from this page for now in order to try and get a wider consensus of support for these necessary steps. Privatemusings (talk) 03:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm minded to move comments older than 1 year on this page to an archive - thoughts? Privatemusings (talk) 03:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that all content resulting from the Dec 2008 proposal should be archived. It's important to keep, but directly relevant to the new guideline. - Stillwaterising (talk) 12:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per the discussions elsewhere of late, I completely oppose any system that wants to categorise/tag/identify/etc images based on such descriptions as "not safe for work", "sexual content", "sexually explicit", "partial nudity", etc, that are not only undefined but also completely undefinable in any way that is culturally neutral, consistent, and objective.

While I don't object to objective, specific tags like "posed photographs of human females with uncovered fully-developed breasts", "unlabelled anatomically correctly line drawings of sexual intercourse between human males and human females showing full figures", and "photographs of groups of adolescent human males with uncovered torsos", anything less detailed can only be subjective. Such subjective tags will lead only to either massive numbers of false positives or massive numbers of false negatives. Both cases would also lead to huge amounts of discussion, debate and argument about whether a specific image fits whichever generic label (e.g is a painting of a naked man and a naked woman kissing each other "sexually explicit" - some cultures say yes, others say no, but which is correct? Does a photograph of a shirtless man depict "partial nudity"? Is a photograph of a teenage mother breastfeeding "explicit"?).

Large numbers of false positives make the system useless by denying access to images that people want to be able to see, thus the system is not used and can see the images that they do not want to as well.

Large numbers of false negatives make the system useless by still showing the images that people do not want to see to them. If the system uses a non-trivial amount of resources then it will get turned off as there is no benefit in using it. Thryduulf (talk) 17:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• {repsonse pending} - Stillwaterising (talk) 11:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have to oppose this proposal also - no evidence has been presented that the current system doesn't work, and as set out below the proposal will not achieve what it sets out to do.

• The proposal is highly US-specific - it is based almost entirely around "18 U.S.C. § 2251", which applies only to certain organisations (it does not apply to Wikimedia Commons) within one country (the United States of America) and as such it's requirements are irrelevant to the rest of the world. "Professional 18 U.S.C. § 2251 services" will not necessarily be available outside the USA. Requiring the keeping in perpetuity in such circumstances would prohibit the upload of any photos not from the United States.
• It does not define "Sexual content". Assuming the definition used in the US Act is intended, then this represents a single interpretation of the term for a single country, rather than the infinite variety of definitions from all the world's other cultures.
• It does not explain how "sexual content tagged with the 'personality rights' template" is harmful, particularly when the definition of "sexual content" (if any) is not necessarily relevant to the culture of the person in the photograph (for example they may not regard the situation as being sexual).
• The suggestion to "Clarify existing practice in terms of explicit imagery" gives no indication what is meant by "explicit imagery". All the consensus I've seen regarding imagery that may be regarded as explicit are the same as that for any other type of imagery - if it is in scope and not redundant to similar images of higher quality then it is desirable. If an image is redundant to similar images, particularly if it is of lower quality, then it is less desirable. Thryduulf (talk) 17:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• {repsonse pending} - Stillwaterising (talk) 11:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The proposals section is equally poorly though out.

• "Require age verification of fully or partially clothed models in sexually suggestive poses" does not indicate what "sexually suggestive poses" might be, excludes historical images where such verification is impossible, and ignores the fact that not every country uses a cut-off at age 18 to determine what is and isn't a photograph of a child.
• "Implement the COPINE Scale as a way to help identify what images may, or may not be acceptable (with rankings of 4 or higher being unacceptable)." is equally culturally biased, but this time towards a scale developed by an unelected body in the United Kingdom, and links to the outdated version of the scale (10 levels) rather than the most recent 5-level scale. It is also worth noting that phrases in the scale, such as "sexualised or provocative poses" are not defined.
• "Work with content-control software software developers in order to provide accurate content ratings of sexually explicit, violent, or disturbing images." does not define what "explicit", "violent" or "disturbing" mean, or how such ratings would be defined and/or implemented, nor whether one or more ratings would be developed to take account of different cultures defining the terms differently (e.g. images of beaches in which some females are topless are generally not considered "explicit" in France but are by some in the USA). Thryduulf (talk) 17:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• {response pending - researching legal issues} - Stillwaterising (talk) 11:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why the hell is this being discussed again? It was soundly thrashed last time. Privatemusings, get a clue: nobody wants this prudish nonsense. Roux (talk) 16:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]