Valleywag's accusations against Erik Moeller, Claims WMF Deputy Director is "a defender of pedophilia" Options

[the fieryangel]

Der König Jimbo 1 makes a royal pronouncement about porn :

I take a very strong stand against having sexually explicit images (those that would trigger USC 2257, especially, but ignoring the pre-1990 versus post-1990 distinctions to err on the side of sanity) of any kind on Wikipedia. Most of the hysteria that happens in this area ignores the fact that mere nudity, or appropriate educational illustrations, does not constitute the problem, and even highly conservative critics are likely to appreciate the need for, and appropriateness of, such illustrations.

Illustrations in this area, as in all areas, should be tasteful, encyclopedic, and directly to the point. We have to understand that a lot of really juvenile people want to tweak us about this by uploading whatever they can "at the fringes". And that there is a lot of kneejerk, "oh yeah, you can't censor Wikipedia!!!!" The issue is not censorship, the issue is the creation of a great encyclopedia.

I have removed the rest of the discussion because I thought it was confusing and off-topic.--[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] ([[User talk:Jimbo Wales#top|talk]]) 12:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm....interesting that business about USC 2257....

Mr. Shankbone relays the news about the conservative bloggers onto the Wikipedia village pump!

Keep it up, Davie! You're doing a great job of getting the word out!!

[the fieryangel]

An Op-Ed in the Colorado Springs Gazette : Remove Kiddie porn or else!

Meanwhile, Mr. Shankbone rallies the troops on our "Fearless Leader's" talkpage!

A rather Shakespearian aside to Squeakie from our hero, Mr. Shankbone :

:::To be honest, SqueakBox, that is why I was so pissed off with you - you had replied in that thread and quoted the allegations, and the thread was over my COI, and then you came here talking about my COI with the photos - that's why I thought you were repeating those allegations. For three months I had some psychopath vandalizing my work and threatening to come after me at Wiki events, and TheFieryAngel had to go searching not only on the ''Polish'' Wikipedia to find my troll's "I live with Michael Lucas" ridiculousness, but she had to find it in a ''cache'' since [http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedysta:David_Shankbone&action=history I removed the comments back in April] (also on the Italian, French, Dutch, German...). The fact is, this pretty typical for WR - and their behavior has gotten more outrageous in the last few months. <<et tu, Somey!>> --<font color="#0000C0">David</font> '''[[User:David Shankbone|<font color="#0000C0">Shankbone</font>]]''' 20:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 9:21pm

[GlassBeadGame]

An Op-Ed in the Colorado Springs Gazette : Remove Kiddie porn or else!

Meanwhile, Mr. Shankbone rallies the troops on our "Fearless Leader's" talkpage!

A rather Shakespearian aside to Squeakie from our hero, Mr. Shankbone :

:::To be honest, SqueakBox, that is why I was so pissed off with you - you had replied in that thread and quoted the allegations, and the thread was over my COI, and then you came here talking about my COI with the photos - that's why I thought you were repeating those allegations. For three months I had some psychopath vandalizing my work and threatening to come after me at Wiki events, and TheFieryAngel had to go searching not only on the ''Polish'' Wikipedia to find my troll's "I live with Michael Lucas" ridiculousness, but she had to find it in a ''cache'' since [http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedysta:David_Shankbone&action=history I removed the comments back in April] (also on the Italian, French, Dutch, German...). The fact is, this pretty typical for WR - and their behavior has gotten more outrageous in the last few months. <<et tu, Somey!>> --<font color="#0000C0">David</font> '''[[User:David Shankbone|<font color="#0000C0">Shankbone</font>]]''' 20:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad that Wikipedia's leading pornographer can discern that WR is become a less accepting place for his vile nonsense. I can't I even follow his paranoid ravings about being picked on, let alone respond to them. But I give him some credit for paying attention to at least the tone. A significant part of WR has outgrown any amusement in his "work."

[the fieryangel]

Arb-com locks down the Erik Moeller article, a "content decision" usually outside of its scope of actions.

Lawrence Cohen asks why this "content decision" took place, and says that he understands "the underlying situation"...

An interesting question is asked here :

::Where and when did the community grant the arbitration committee as a body, with their nominal authority, power over editorial matters? They are empowered wholly by us, and I don't recall seeing this detailed on their official page. They can only do what the community proscribes. <span style="font-variant:small-caps"><font color="#800080">[[User:Lawrence Cohen|Lawrence Cohen]] § [[User talk:Lawrence Cohen|t]]/[[:Special:Contributions/Lawrence_Cohen|e]]</font></span> 00:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Cohen then warns other editors that the "Valleywag" article needs to be done "by the book"....

Mwelcoff provides some very reasonable arguments for removing hardcore porn images on WP.

I don't think you folks understand the influence of the "family values" lobby. Their ranks include politicians, prosecutors and judges who can make Wikipedia's life miserable. I'm going to guess that 99.9% of parents and educators don't want their kids looking at hardcore pornography. You may disagree with them, but you can't pretend they don't exist or don't matter. We don't have to do everything they say, but we have to at least be responsive to their concerns. To dismiss their concerns out of hand recklessly endangers the future of Wikipedia.
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Furthermore, even if pornography-shy people didn't have a lot of political power, they are potential users of Wikipedia, and therefore, their concerns should be considered as much as those of any other user. And there are a lot of porn-shy people. If you know anything about [[Middle America]], you'll know there's a lot more of them out there than there are of people who are comfortable with, say, drawings, let alone pictures, of gay sex. There's also the millions of people who use Wikipedia at work or school, where NSFW images may be forbidden. Encyclopedic information should not be withheld from Wikipedia for their sake, but at the same time, we should try to do what we can to make Wikipedia a more pleasant experience for them, just as we would with any other group of people. As I have proposed several times, this can be done easily and without censorship -- Every page with an NSFW image should be topped with a warning specifying the NSFW content below, and users should be able to click on an option to see the page without the NSFW image. This would not interfere in any way with anyone's ability to read Wikipedia with NSFW images.
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It's a matter of simple courtesy. Saying "If you don't want to look at porn, don't use Wikipedia (or turn images off in your browser)" is an example of what I call the cardinal sin of Wikipedia: Doing what makes you happy rather than what makes the potential reader happy. That is, selfishness. Wikipedia exists to serve the readers, not to serve us. -- -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] ([[User talk:Mwalcoff|talk]]) 02:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[dogbiscuit]

It's a matter of simple courtesy. Saying "If you don't want to look at porn, don't use Wikipedia (or turn images off in your browser)" is an example of what I call the cardinal sin of Wikipedia: Doing what makes you happy rather than what makes the potential reader happy. That is, selfishness. Wikipedia exists to serve the readers, not to serve us. -- -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] ([[User talk:Mwalcoff|talk]]) 02:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that Fiery. it is good to see people making cogent arguments for doing the right thing.

Mr Shankbone would do well to read that and understand that this is exactly the point I was making to him - it is not a case of OMGTHECHILDREN CENSORSHIP!!! hysteria, it is courtesy, common sense and ethical. It is recognising that there is not one true way of the perfection of amorality (aka FU, anything goes), it is recognising that the commonly held view in the real world is that morality is an important aspect of a civilised society.

[jorge]

Mwelcoff provides some very reasonable arguments for removing hardcore porn images on WP.

It's a matter of simple courtesy. Saying "If you don't want to look at porn, don't use Wikipedia (or turn images off in your browser)" is an example of what I call the cardinal sin of Wikipedia: Doing what makes you happy rather than what makes the potential reader happy. That is, selfishness. Wikipedia exists to serve the readers, not to serve us. -- -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] ([[User talk:Mwalcoff|talk]]) 02:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

How about they implement a safe search thingy, like you get in Google/Live search? Safe would be on by default, and you get the option to change to moderate which shows explicit illustrations, and unrestricted which shows everything? The explicit drawings and photos could use a different template to mark them for filtering. When an image is seen under the safe or moderate setting, a placeholder appears explaining why it is being hidden and how to change settings?

[dogbiscuit]

How about they implement a safe search thingy, like you get in Google/Live search? Safe would be on by default, and you get the option to change to moderate which shows explicit illustrations, and unrestricted which shows everything? The explicit drawings and photos could use a different template to mark them for filtering. When an image is seen under the safe or moderate setting, a placeholder appears explaining why it is being hidden and how to change settings?

There are some issues in getting "the Community" to accept that they have a responsibility to do markup - pictures might be easy enough, textual content might be harder, especially if you consider that a dictionary definition of bestiality might be considered appropriate, but the apparent prosthelitising of it would be inappropriate, so unless you can persuade the community to take a conservative approach, you do not really have a solution that would satisfy the "fairly moral majority" (disregarding the extremists).

It needs to be implemented in a way that the likes of Google are also aware of the editorial assessment made.

This is mis-characterised by Wikipediots as censorship. It seems to me it is simply giving the tools to OMG!!!THEPARENTZ111 to allow them to refine their ability to give their children access to a reasonably useful body of information. It is not censorship if it is there and it can be accessed by the appropriate audience.

The issue to me is that this is a hard decision to make as you need to strip aside the emotion and also understand other people's perspective, those who hold a different set of values from your own. The community have shown that they are incapable of doing this on so many fronts now, the rule of the mob is too much of a blunt instrument. Therefore the body that needs to control the discussion and implement the solution is the WMF. Unfortunately, I see no evidence that they have the insight to do this themselves, other than as a reactionary defence to what they perceive as an attack, rather than as an observation of how to make Wikipedia a more acceptable product for worldwide consumption.

[JohnA]

I wonder what net filter companies like "Net Nanny" and "Surfcontrol" think of the pr0n on Wikipedia? Perhaps someone should ask them....

[Somey]

...The fact is, this pretty typical for WR - and their behavior has gotten more outrageous in the last few months. <<et tu, Somey!>> --<font color="#0000C0">David</font> '''[[User:David Shankbone|<font color="#0000C0">Shankbone</font>]]''' 20:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

They mentioned me! They mentioned me!

One thing I don't understand, though - we're the ones advocating less porn on Wikipedia, aren't we? Why are we accused of being more outrageous?

[Kato]

...The fact is, this pretty typical for WR - and their behavior has gotten more outrageous in the last few months. <<et tu, Somey!>> --<font color="#0000C0">David</font> '''[[User:David Shankbone|<font color="#0000C0">Shankbone</font>]]''' 20:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

They mentioned me! They mentioned me!

One thing I don't understand, though - we're the ones advocating less porn on Wikipedia, aren't we? Why are we accused of being more outrageous?

My raison d'etre for many months has been to encourage / shame Wikipedia and the WMF into adopting a minimum standard of responsibility for its content in regard to children. Having witnessed Lolita categories, the Boy Scouts debacle and countless other scandals in the past, this seems like a reasonable position.

If instead it is "outrageous" then so be it.

I'm going to add a post I made from a thread that had to be moved after more Shankbone antics:

Shankbone and other apologists plead that the Wikia Boy Scouts fetish scandal had "nothing to do with Wikipedia". This is false.

Here is the story
http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20080130/w...hs-of-children/

And here is what I wrote in reply to someone who also claimed it had "nothing to do with Wikipedia" indicating just a few of the reasons why that statement is false.

1. Some of the images of children that appeared on the Spanking site were uploaded to Wikipedia and moved across.
2. The text to certain articles, such as “Boy Scouts” that appeared on Wikia’s Spanking Site were taken directly from Wikipedia
3. Our article discusses this in relation to activities going on at the Wiki-Commons such as the Lolita Category and Wikipedia’s boy article
4. Wikia was founded by Jimbo Wales and Angela Beesley when they were both board members of the Wikimedia Foundation, the tax exempt group that runs Wikipedia and the WikiCommons. Wikimedia Foundation Board of Directors includes: Jimmy Wales (Chairman Emeritus) and Michael E. Davis (Treasurer). Wikimedia Foundation also enjoys the services of a former Board member, who remains a member of the Communications Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation and also chairs the Foundation’s Advisory Board: Angela Beesley. Key players at the for-profit Wikia, Inc.: Jimmy Wales (co-founder), Michael E. Davis (Treasurer and Secretary), Angela Beesley (co-founder and vice president for community relations).
5. Jimbo Wales was informed of the issue by editors on his talk page of Wikipedia. Wales then removed one of the images of children himself.
6. The Wikia administrator who removed the Spanking Site, Catherine Munro, is also an administrator of Wikipedia.
7. When people complained about the site, on Wikipedia, it was prominent Wikipedians who stepped in to defend the use of pictures of pre-pubescent boys uploaded to Wikipedia being used to endorse Child Abuse on Wikia's Sex fetish site. Here is an example of an exchange:
   
   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=186211884
   
   

   The potential for abuse of images, making wiki look bad, condoning child porn here is huge. Please act, Jimbo. If such use is condoned, I will no longer submit images of children to wiki. <span style="font-family: verdana;"> — [[User:Rlevse|<span style="color:#060;">'''''R''levse'''</span>]] • [[User_talk:Rlevse|<span style="color:#990;">Talk</span>]] • </span> 22:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
   
   You guys are arguing against freedom. Against free speech. Against free culture. Against the free reuse of media. Against WikiMedia and Wikipedia. Go sell your love of slavery elsewhere. [[User:WAS 4.250|WAS 4.250]] ([[User talk:WAS 4.250|talk]]) 22:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Read that last quote from prominent Wikipedia user WAS 4.250 again. "You guys are arguing against freedom".

When we protested about pictures of children that were placed in a "Lolita category" on Wikicommons, and had been there for a long time, were we "arguing against freedom"? Can any loyal Wikipedian out there justify this please?

[GlassBeadGame]

Outstanding post, Kato.