The animated gif file of a man mastrubating is in a public domain, Do we need it in public domain? Options

[Peter Damian]

I'm surprised this is not a subject here already (and apologies if it is). On Jimmy's talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...ublic_domain.3F .

Notable for the crass and stupid comments of various 'not censored' Wikipedians. Sample below.

I have opened the group [1] I have invited Sue Gardner to join it. Can you join it? I don't know what else can I do.I know that you are a charity. A charity in the UK must be for public benefit http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Chari...it/default.aspx I don't know too much about the USA. I fail to see any public benefit in public masturbation. It hurts. Please do something about it!— Preceding unsigned comment added by Natbrown (talk • contribs) 19:26, 27 January 2012
Did your child see some naughty image you wish they hadn't? Just add Wikipedia to the list of blocked sites on your net filter and have a talk with your child.
Is it what you want people to do? 60% voted for this answer. Natkabrown (talk) 08:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC) Wikipedia is not censored. – ukexpat (talk) 19:37, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
When I masturbate in public, I don't really feel any different than when I do it in private; can you possibly tell us why when you masturbate in public, it hurts? Y u no be Russavia ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) 19:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It irritates me when people call such stuff 'adult'. It's not, it's juvenile.

The collapsed box (IRC chat) has a good example of a sarcastic Wikipedian trying to humiliate the objector (who claims to be a woman).

[10:31]natbrown has joined #wikimedia-commons
[10:33] <natbrown> Hi, I found some very unpleasant photos http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mas...rfahrung%29.jpg
[10:33] <natbrown> There is a video attached as well
[10:33] <Funfood> What is your problem with these files?
[10:34] <natbrown> There is a whole category http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Male_masturbation
[10:34] <Funfood> there it belongs to, yes
[10:34] <natbrown> I am a woman. I find this very offencive. I don't want to see it.
[10:35] <Funfood> you don't need to open them, neither the files or the category
[10:35] <natbrown> Should this be in Wikipedia? Aren't there enough sites dedicated to these techniques?
[10:35] <Nickname1> you'll get over it
[10:36] <Funfood> commons is not wikipedia, but there are, of course a lot of discussions about those files
[10:36] <natbrown> I found them by searching for "roll over
[10:36] <Funfood> I for my part don't think that human body parts are disgusting somehow
[10:37] <Funfood> but your opinion may vary
[10:37] <natbrown> Very often I work with my granddaughter by my site. She is 8 now. Would you like your daughter or your mother to see those files?
[10:38] <Funfood> If they appear by accident on the screen, it is a good time to explain children something about the internet
[10:38] <Funfood> and my mother has surely seen a penis before (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

Actually I remember meeting Natka at the meetup in November last year. A grandmother, totally offended by the unencyclopedic nonsense she saw with her 8 year old granddaughter. The Facebook page is here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-pornogr...307245972661745

[11:01] <Snowolf> natbrown: Wikipedia is not censored.
[...]
[12:01]<natbrown> I will copy and paste this conversation, so people know why I have opened the group.
[12:02] <natbrown> !admin@commons
[12:03] <Snowolf> You cannot copypaste this conversation without the permission of all involved

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[mbz1]

Is WMF would have to make a choice, if Wikipedia is to host a free porno images, or it is a charitable organization?

[Web Fred]

Is WMF would have to make a choice, if Wikipedia is to host a free porno images, or it is a charitable organization?

Why can't it be both?

[Mister Die]

Is WMF would have to make a choice, if Wikipedia is to host a free porno images, or it is a charitable organization?

Why can't it be both?

Because the average person would probably be appalled if they knew that their children's favorite encyclopedia had images of great value for articles of equally great value like "Snowballing (sexual practice)" (a gag-worthy image, and I can look at Goatse without flinching) and "Cum shot."

You don't think there's something off about an "encyclopedia" that simultaneously contains articles for Kwame Nkrumah, Mewto and Salirophilia?

This post has been edited by Mister Die:

[Web Fred]

Is WMF would have to make a choice, if Wikipedia is to host a free porno images, or it is a charitable organization?

Why can't it be both?

Because the average person would probably be appalled if they knew that their children's favorite encyclopedia had images of great value for articles of equally great value like "Snowballing (sexual practice)" (a gag-worthy image, and I can look at Goatse without flinching) and "Cum shot."

You don't think there's something off about an "encyclopedia" that simultaneously contains articles for Kwame Nkrumah, Mewto and Salirophilia?

No I don't have a problem with it. An encyclopaedia is an information source for all things in our world and in our humanity. Non-normal sexual practises come under that banner as far as I'm concerned.

It's not Wikipedia's responsibility to be a net nanny. That's the parent's job.

[Abd]

No I don't have a problem with it. An encyclopaedia is an information source for all things in our world and in our humanity. Non-normal sexual practises come under that banner as far as I'm concerned.

mmm... "information source for all things in our world and in our humanity" isn't accurate. Took me some time to wrap my head around this. "The sum of all human knowledge" does not mean all knowledge, added together in one big mass. It means "summary." And that's classically encyclopedic. A general encyclopedia does *not* contain all detail about everything, there is selection for importance. Which is obviously somewhat subjective. The Wikipedia community or the WMF couldn't figure out how to discriminate on importance, objectively, so it punted. Inclusion became based on the availability of independently published sources meeting certain reliability standards. However, there is no reliable structure in place to apply the standards evenly, so what is considered adequate is about anyone's guess, at least on the edges. Lots of the most highly objectionable articles have weak sourcing, but attempts to delete them on that basis are perceived, by enough users, as being censorship. Horrors! That's why, even though notability doesn't expire, in theory, we still see AfDs succeed on, say, the 8th attempt. That proves about nothing about the individual article, but it does show that something is way, way off in the process, in the structure.

In a classical encyclopedia, notability does expire, where subjects become irrelevant to society.

Once again, the root problem is the lack of reliable decision-making process. Notability or other inclusion standards should be reasonably predictable; when it isn't, people waste lots of time, in both directions, in writing what is going to be deleted, and in attempting to delete what is going to be kept. The function of what has been called "instruction creep" has been missed. It's to make the world safe, it's called "rule of law," so people will know, reasonably well, in advance, how decisions will go. Otherwise its up to whatever jury and judge show up on a particular day. Unpredictable. Waste of time written into the structure, a natural consequence of it.

It's not Wikipedia's responsibility to be a net nanny. That's the parent's job.

Sure. I'm a parent, so I don't allow my kids to read Wikipedia unsupervised. That's a shame. Where is education most important? For adults? We don't need an encyclopedia to learn about "unusual sexual practices." The net is quite adequate for that, or, probably better, a special encyclopedia with process that guarantees reliability, which the net itself doesn't do.

Wikipedia, I've often written, should fork itself. Heh! I mean it in a good way.

It would resolve a lot of truly needless and wasteful conflict. A core encyclopedia, highly reliable, and safe for kids as well, could *link* in certain ways to other specialized encyclopedias. It wouldn't have to host those images! But it might show where more can be learned about, say, "unusual sexual practices." My girls, 8 and 10, know what sex is, they know the basics, they have for years. They aren't terribly interested in gory details, which mostly gross them out. A shift will come as they mature.

The flat Wikipedia page structure wasn't designed to handle levels of education. A family of cooperating encyclopedias could easily be.

This post has been edited by Abd: