Commons talk:Nudity

April 2006

I'd like to suggest the addition of the following clause: "If a reasonable case can be made that the photo shows something different than the existing photos, then in general, it will be acceptable to keep both images. Wikimedia Commons should have photos of human anatomy in all its variety or diversity. However, the difference in question needs to be put into words."--Eloquence 16:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Added. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

---

I think in general this policy appears to be quite well thought-out. Many people have strong emotional reactions when they first see a picture of nudity, and these reactions in turn provoke overreactions in people who fear censorship. This seems to walk the fence in an objective way. The only thing I'm nervous about is speedy deletion of nude images uploaded solely for the purpose of vandalism. These could potentially be useful, despite the vandal's intentions, if they meet some of your other criteria for keep. Deco 20:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

True, but in my experience they rarely do, and they are usually without a license which normally means wait 7 days before speedy deletion applies. I have deleted a few images like this and actually a couple were the kind of "joke" pictures you find on weird websites, designed to shock/disturb. So that point doesn't just apply to nudity pictures. My thinking is that, they're not part of the Wikimedia community (account is always new), this image is only being used to vandalise, so who is worse off by its immediate deletion? pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

---

• While I generally aggree with the whole policy I'm not that sure if we really need all this in the first place. There is actually nothing really new/different to the existing deletion guidelines, it just focuses especially on nudity and makes everything more specialised and complicated. Especially these (already existing) points cover almost everything:

A file or page can be listed for deletion on Commons:Deletion requests in the following cases:
[..]
# The file has a low image quality/resolution (e.g. out of focus, too small).
# The file/page is redundant through a better but not identical one.

The point is only that nobody did that until now, everybody just put up a deletion request for those pictures with some obscure reason like "this is offensive!!!!111". So I think it is not a problem at all with the existing guidelines to delete bad shots and just keep a few good ones.

Anyways, I think it is probably a good idea to merge some of points into the existing guidelines, especially the two sentences under "vandalism" should probably be added there.-- Gorgo 01:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

There is not a lot new, I agree, but the low quality guideline is quite subjective and has rarely been successfully used on COM:DEL in my memory. IMO Commons people tend towards inclusionism and especially when there is a chance others might claim "You're censoring the Commons!!!" Did you see Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Masturbation.jpg? This is the type of deletion request I'm talking about. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal. It seems well-crafted and I think it may reduce conflict among editors to add these words. Wsiegmund 04:07, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I also think that we should also prefer images that have a lot clearer information about the photo itself (when it was taken, who took it, what license it is under) and that could solve most of our issues. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 06:56, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

---

Let's keep in mind that the Commons was originally intended as a central location for images (and other materials), to enable various language versions of Wikipedia to use the same picture, for illustrative purposes in their articles. It was meant to enhance the efficient use of storage space. I know there is a dicussion about "contextless" pictures, but that centres around the question of whether a realy nice picture, which is not currently used in an article, should be allowed to stay on the stregth of its artistic qualities.

The artistic merits of an average penis, however, are debatable, if not absent, barring clear indications to the contrary. I also note that we have, at this moment, a collection of pictures of the said object that can be said to encompass most sizes and states or arousal. This means that any more pictures of the male reproductive organ do not contribute to either the Commons or to Wikipedia, are superfluous and can be deleted, regularly or speedily.

For men wishing to show their dicks to the rest of the world, there are, I understand, several other websites. I trust that they will find a more receptive audience there. MartinD 08:51, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

...So I take it you support this proposal. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I do. And by the way, I think we are also nearing the point where female genitalia can be considered to be adequately illustrated. MartinD 14:38, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

What about generalisation?

Hm I was thinking a little bit about how to avoid the impression that we censor sexual content when applying such a policy. Basically we are thinking about that policy as we have too much images of penises without any further added value for Wikimedia projects whith every further uploaded penis image. The same holds for example for very similar images about cats and dogs looking quite silly into the camera (and there are quite some people uploading such pictures of their cats and dogs). So I would suggest:

1. We don't keep too much very similar images (let us say everything above 5 topic wise very similar images) on a certain topic and only keep the best ones for every educational aspect in case there are too many existing at Commons.

respectfully can't agree with "5-only" as a rule. commons is a MEDIA REPOSITORY. no serious, comparable commercial photo-archive would employ such a rule. (please consider the "with respect" as a preamble to all my following annotations, also) Lx 121 (talk) 11:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

1. If someone claims an image being not useful because there are several others in Commons serving much more better that purpose he needs to tag it with a special tag and has to add it to Commons:Deletion requests with a detailed rationale and comparison that there is in fact a larger set of better images available.

1. What exactly is meant with "too much similar images" will be decided by the executing admin on a case by case basis after a debate with the usual time frame at Commons:Deletion requests.

what a truly horrible idea! ONE ADMIN gets to decide: a) how many images in a category is "too many" & b) what to delete, based on their previous judgement call!? & on top of that it's "case-by-case", so no established rules or precedents? the potential for abuse-of-power is breathtaking. we already have trouble keeping track of inappropriate deletions & dealing with undeletion requests properly & in a timely manner; this would multiply those administrative problems. Lx 121 (talk) 11:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

1. Such an images needs to be unlinked in Wikimedia project articles before it can be deleted.

ABSOLUTELY NO UNLINKING (from other wm project wikis) OF "IN-USE" IMAGES IS ACCEPTABLE, on the basis of this rationale-for-deletion. not only would it make terrible policy for commons as a media source, but the affected users @ affected wikis would scream blue, bloody murder! Lx 121 (talk) 11:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

So I am considering moving the existing "Redundant" template to "Identical" and making a new "Redundant" template that requires adding a file to deletion request. That way we can hopefully also avoid the problems we have with false redundant tagged images and can hopefully reduce the problems frequently coming up at Village Pump regarding non-redundant images being deleted. What do you think? Arnomane 17:20, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Do I summarize your proposal correctly as "If we have a collection of several images of the same object, basically serving the same purpose, we should, from time to time, consider choosing only the best of them, and propose deleting the superfluous ones"? I think this is a good idea, but we might run into the problem of "local" Wikipedias then linking to an image that does not exist anymore.

As an example, in the article on nl:Postmodernisme (architectuur) (postmodernist architecture) the picture Image:ING House Amsterdam.JPG is now used, but I think Image:INGHouse1.jpg is a better one. (Simply because it is taken with a wide-angle lens, showing the entire building, something my camera could not do.)

If the image used presently is deleted, the article on the Dutch Wikipedia would lose this image. Obviously, we are putting images on Commons with the object of facilitating "local" Wikipedias to use them.

Is there a facility of finding out which local Wikipedias use an image this is in the process of "might be deleted", and warning the people of this local Wikipedia that they should keep an eye on the matter? If not, I think we should think about the matter before deleting an image that is, although perhaps superfluous to requirements, not offensive in any way other that taking up some storage space.

I'm not a technical man, so may I ask the experts for information on this issue? Best regards, MartinD 08:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Well of course the usage problem of local wikipedias is being adressed by point 4 of my suggestion. As we have check-usage, we can determine (although not everytime exactly, due to lags at the toolserver and some issues with templates that give you to much usage hits) where a file is being used and a "redundant" file will not being deleted if you haven't changed the linkage everywhere.

User:Duesentrieb is currently working on a local project notification framework so that a local Wikipedia gets alerted on a summary page on such proposed changes at Commons (like redundancy, deletion requests, missing license information and such) about affected images used by that project. So this framework would help all people working togehter finding a decent replacement (and not just a removal) not only in case of redundancy but also in case of copyvios and such and thus would reduce our problem that we often do not have the time unlinking a copyvio everywhere before we delete it. Arnomane 15:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

If check-usage prevents local Wikipedias "losing" images, that solves my problem. In that case, I agree with your idea. MartinD 05:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Hm. I don't like the idea of extending this beyond its current bounds. The fact that images with nudity are often used in vandalism attacks was one of my prime motivations for writing this. Because there is no danger of running out of disk space I don't feel it is necessary to enforce stricter quality controls on general submissions. The way you have proposed it will be too subjective, I fear, and again lead to claims of Commons enforcing rules it has no jurisdiction on (if a local project wants to use a crappy image, why not let them? since when are we the quality police?). So I would ask for the minute to consider this proposal in its limited form first. If it seems like people like having quality controls, perhaps we can then look to extend it. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

with all due respect, the "vandalism" arguement is now obsolete. we have plenty of effective anti-vandalism tools deployed on all the major wm projects now. this is no longer valid as a rationale to delete anything. i agree with you about the problems you mention. & many people would "like" quality-control standards, as long as they agreed with the decisions being made about what to keep & what to delete (not that this makes it a good idea), but the truly IMPOSSIBLE part is getting everybody to agree to the same standards... Lx 121 (talk)

At the risk of some slight misunderstanding of your proposal (which I would roughly summarize as "let's try to limit pictures of (male) genitalia to those that can be said to have some illustrative purpose"): I support it. MartinD 14:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

respectfully, no; the user (assuming that you meant the original proposal) is saying "apply the same standards to ALL categories" for the sake of fairness. the problem with that is that it would involve establishing a quanity-limit per-category on commons & i do not see that as going through, nor do i support it. althought i do agreed STRONGLY with the principle of applying the same standard to all categories. Lx 121 (talk) 11:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Support

I'd like to announce my support for this, thanks --birdy geimfyglið _{(:> )=|} 23:54, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Best proposed policy ever. --Tarawneh 05:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, very good. -Samulili 13:48, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Ongoing problem

See for example Special:Contributions/Nibiru.333 and Special:Contributions/Robert_Fuller.

Also see w:MediaWiki talk:Bad image list. They have a list of 'bad images' (all penises!) that, whenever they are tried to show in articles, will only show an inline text link. So that is a different kind of solution to a similar problem. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to w:MediaWiki:Bad image list. I hadn't seen this MediaWiki feature before, but now I don't think that vandalism is such a big deal anymore. For instance, I wouldn't have needed to reuploaded Masturbation.jpg with a new name. Whenever someone complains that an image is only used for vandalism, we should ask them to make use of this feature. / Fred Chess 22:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I now restored the image:masturbation.jpg into its previous state. / Fred Chess 22:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

But AFAIK only en.wp has this feature. The problem is usually vandalism on smaller projects which don't always have the resources to revert large-scale attacks quickly. I will find out if others can implement it, or if we can make a commons one which would be WM-wide. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Found out from robchurch on IRC that any site can implement it (but we can't do a 'Commons' one that would work outside Commons). So, this is great news. Just finding out details now about how to implement it. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Sex

We also have to define what constitutes educational depictions of sexual acts and what constitutes pornography (which is still somewhat illegal to view in many parts of the world). Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 18:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

There are very few 'pornographic' pictures that are uploaded with legitimate licenses, in my experience. Besides which, if it's illegal to view pornography, you should probably know better than to go to Category:Sex. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

pfctdayelise kindly asked me to comment on this, here is my opinion. (By pornography I am refering to explicit hardcore pornography.)

• There is no picture without scientific value. In general, the more diversity, the more scientific value. A picture might have a value you don't see at the first glance. Even pictures which are clearly pornography have a scientific value if used in the right context.
• If a picture is used for vandalism, there are easier ways to stop that. If there is no functionality in MediaWiki to block images from being included directly in all pages but a given list, such a functionality needs to be implemented as soon as possible. But if I remember correctly, MediaWiki has such a functionality or at least a subset of it. Such pictures might be shown as if one had used [[:Image:...]] on those pages not in the whitelist. It should also be possible to protect pictures from being viewable on the Image page directly except by admins with, say, a "legal age" flag. This might be handy for pornographic pictures to be ensured only to be used in scientific context, since that is in many jurisdictions the only context in which they are legally displayable to minors.
• My proposed solution would be in case of vandalism and in case of legal problems with pornography, things should be handled in an ad-hoc and case-by-case basis. If ever a picture needs to be deleted only for such a reason, because the functionality proposed above does not exist yet, by no means should the picture be deleted entirely, somebody should keep a private archive before he deletes. They might be of value at one day. Free licenses are also free of moral. Keep that in mind. --Rtc 13:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Some ideas of this discussion should be add to the article

Tired to see sex pictures on commons (a link to it till it's archived... Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Tired_to_see_Sex_picture_on_commons_.21 )

Hello, I'm tired to find sex picture upload on commons with uploader saying "My pics are GFDL, is encyclopedic, stop the censure !". I'm wikipedian, I work to build an encyclopédie better than Britannica. Wikipedia NEED NOT one hundred pics of felatio, neither ten of sex group. We (administrators) should be allow to block quickly and without vote users who upload only sex pics.

Today I found user:Safedom (his gallery). Typically saying "wikipedia is not censured", "this is encyclopedic", "this is work wikipedia improvement". This user upload only pics of sex, his sex, him doing sex, nude women... under PD license.
No License violation, but he seem clear that this user is laughing of us.

So, I will block him, clear all "unencyclopedic pics" (almost all), and I encourage every administrator to act quickly against such users. They are not working for wikipedias, they are working against.
Yug (talk) 15:11, 18 September 2006 (UTC) [simply tired to be "tolerant"]

That's done : I deleted about 20 sex pics , and let 10 tolerable sexy pics.

I think we should state in the {{Welcome}} template something such :

"Any provocative and unencyclopedic pics will be delete without any warning. Neutral pics are tolerate. Encyclopedic pics are welcome !"

Like this, users and administrators will know what to do in such cases. Yug (talk) 17:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Likely these users are copycat of the en: user PublicGirlUK and are trolling since they didn't like the way things were handled. Jimbo himself commented the behaviour was trollish and the stuff should have be removed without so much fuss. Drini 16:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I am suspicious that most of this user's pics are his own, however, I am loathe to use a notice such as "Any provocative and unencyclopedic pics will be delete without any warning." This is entirely subjective. See Commons:Nudity and contribute. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 17:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

When you see a pics 3 ass because it's a pic with 2 men fucking a woman... Even under PD license , this is clearly provocative and unencyclopedic. This kind of pics have to stay 3 minutes on commons, no more.

Afterwhat, Yes we have to make choice, but we have to be confident in the encyclopedic nature of commons, and free to delete what is really not. "Any provocative and unencyclopedic pics will be delete without any warning. Neutral pics are tolerate." is a good rule to follow. Yug (talk) 18:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, those uploads would occur no matter what notice we put up. You can't have a porn filter. We delete clear pornography on sight. Less clear items require debate as to their usefulness. I personally think we have enough penis pictures to last us forever, but that's a subjective opinion. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 19:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I also think we have enough clear pictures and clear scheme of sexs for encyclopedic us, which allow use to delete ugly ones, not use ones, and provocative ones within 5 minutes or one day. Yug (talk) 21:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Here is how I see it. The only acceptable reasons for "pornography" deletion is copyvios and that wikipedia is not a webhost. Porn is a comercial product so it is unlikely for it to be avalible with a free license. As for trolling, trolls also use existing free images. Just like all vandalism, dont make a big deal of it and simply remove it and if necesary, block the vandal...

Any other reason such as "protecting minors" is unnaceptable as per NPOV policy if nothing else. Wikipedia is not and will not be censored.

--Cat out 21:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Cool Cat, we cannot do anything with dozens of poor quality amateur anonymous photos of men masturbating. No one here is arguing for "protecting minors". We argue for protecting our own sensibilities and understandings of what the Commons is about, what it's designed for and what it should contain. The point is more subtle than "wikipedia is not censored". pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Um, there are laws against child pornography that Wikimedia DOES have to obey. This is something that Wikimedia has apparently overlooked I see categories such as "nude children" and "nude babies" listed, which may have illegal pix in them (I didn't look). Rickyrab 08:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Nude children or babies is not always pedophilia!!! Or maybe Anne Geddes has to go to jail... ;-) --86.67.47.199 18:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I like this guideline. Exhibitionists should be banned! 75.72.187.5 11:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Approval?

No-one has commented on this for months now, as as it seems to have attracted general support I am removing the reference to it being a proposed policy. --MichaelMaggs 22:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

“Closing thought”

As this article is an official guideline, I removed the following last section:

From Image talk:Penis glans foreskin.jpg: Everybody wants to show his dick, but when we need some underarm pictures or some back pictures, there is nobody. It's funny. --User:84.101.175.43

Diti (talk to the penguin) 11:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

model age / release information

(to offer context - I offered a thoroughly rejected proposal at Commons:Sexual content with related ideas, but it's been intimated that discussion at current guideline / policy pages is a better way forward, which seems fair.)

I'd like to gauge community consensus for how we might approach the idea of model age and release information, and whether or not it's sensible to have some sort of practice / policy in this area? I don't think we currently consider that issue? Personally, I wonder if the best way forward is to invite uploaders to confirm subject's ages and the fact that they (the subject / model, not just the photographer) release the image to wikimedia etc. (my experience of this so far was very easy, and hassle free). In the absence of such information, and given the relative volume, and ease of access elsewhere to such imagery, I would support a presumption to delete.

I feel there are many strong reasons to ask for a bit more info related to shots like this one, where it's pretty straightforward in terms of copyright, and in terms of utility for the project, but we haven't yet considered the reasonable perspective that the subject may not wish to have their image available for wider use. Please note that in this case, the 'identifiable people' guideline will also apply, however I'm suggesting something which should apply to nudity in general (that's pictures of bits 'n bobs) - not just images with faces. cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

pics of women

I reworded the final bit, to reflect the current situation - if this is as uncontroversial as I expect, I'll probably shift the para.s round a bit presently... cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 02:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Moral issues?

How would folk feel about incorporating this from the 'identifiable people' guideline?

Moral issues

Not all legally-obtained photographs of individuals are acceptable to Commons even if they otherwise fall within the project's scope. The following types of image are normally considered unacceptable:

• Those that unfairly demean or ridicule the subject
• Those that are unfairly obtained
• Those that unreasonably intrude into the subject's private or family life

These are categories which are matters of common decency rather than law. They find a reflection in the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12: (No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation).

The extent to which a particular photograph is "unfair" or "intrusive" will depend on the nature of the shot, whether it was taken in a public or private place, the title/description, and on the type of subject (e.g., a celebrity, a non-famous person, etc).

This is all a matter of degree. A snatched shot of a celebrity caught in an embarrassing position in a public place may well be acceptable to the community; a similar shot of an anonymous member of the public may or may not be acceptable, depending on what is shown and how it is presented.

• This might sound like a stupid question, but how do you define "Those that are unfairly obtained?" User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 08:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The wording is already in COM:PEOPLE and does not need to be repeated here. There is no definition of "unfairly", but if it came up no doubt users would take a common sense view. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

So like stolen, compromising positions, things like that? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 20:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

quick reply to Michael - the COM:PEOPLE guideline, so I'm told, only applies to 'identifiable' people - I'm suggesting these 'moral issues' apply equally to nudity (like this shot) - where it has already been argued the women aren't indentifiable. Further, even were the face to be cropped from the photo, I'm suggesting these criteria should still apply. Thoughts? Privatemusings (talk) 22:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Even if the person is unidentifiable? No, the criteria wouldn't apply. The whole point is that they only apply to identifiable people. Why would they be otherwise?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 05:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I rather feel that moral issues may apply regardless of whether the person is identifiable... in fact that's really my whole point! (sorry about the extended delay in replying too) Privatemusings (talk) 00:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I know that's your point. But you haven't explained why that is true, you're simply asserting that it is so. In reality, it is only identifiable images to which COM:PEOPLE applies - an image of my toe is therefore not restricted. A picture of my whole body from behind? It's debatable whether that's "identifiable" or not - and we would debate it rather than simply asserting things. Please provide your reasoning why a non-identifiable image of someone should be restricted by COM:PEOPLE.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

<- well, in reading COM:PEOPLE, I'm not sure that the 'moral issues' clearly relate solely to the fact that a person is identifiable? Perhaps mileage varies - but there's not alot in that section that really directly relates to the visible face of a person? Is it possible to obtain an image without a face unfairly? is it possible to unreasonably intrude into a subject's privacy without showing their face? - I'd say the answer to both is probably yes - and I feel that it's reasonable to think that a person may have some reservations about their image being used online, with such a wide potential footprint etc. - particularly if it involves nudity. Whaddya reckon? Privatemusings (talk) 01:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Permission of subject

I think a general statement that permission of the subject is desirable / necessary for photos featuring nudity would be a good thing - thoughts? Privatemusings (talk) 00:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the horse is beyond dead by now. --Carnildo (talk) 22:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

does that mean you don't think it's a good idea, Carn? or you're just sort of bored by the whole thing! ;-) Privatemusings (talk) 00:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

ok - so to re-iterate a little - I'd like to add a 'permission of the subject' bit to this policy, because I believe it shows greater respect to the people (largely young women) photographed. Many of commons material featuring nudity is of a high standard, and would seem to have been shot as part of a professional shoot (I'm thinking most of the 'flickr' material falls into this category) - however in the case of shots taken in public places featuring nudity, permission of the subject would need to be established under my proposal. I'll try and write something up, and drop it here for consideration :-) Privatemusings (talk) 01:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If someone is nude in a public place where they have no expectation of privacy, why do we need their permission? For example, someone nude at a nude beach should probably expect to be seen in the nude. This is nearly tautological; you've yet to provide any reasoning for your change.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 03:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think someone nude at a public beach would necessarily be cool with a photo being uploaded to a wiki really, Mike - I especially feel that the 'moral issues' detailed in regard to 'identifiable people' apply regardless of whether we define the person as 'identifiable' or not. Further, I don't think many of these photos add much to the project because we have fairly strong redundancy - I just think there's something not-so-great about shooting pictures of other people, and insisting that because they were in public, we have the right to publish them online. Privatemusings (talk) 05:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

That's all fine and dandy, but all you've said is "I think it is proper to delete these images." Well, I may also think so, but there’s a big gap between assertion and argument; between surmise and evidence. So if you can tell me where COM:MORAL entails that we ought to delete images of this nature, we can consider your arguments. But until it’s done, we can’t really consider them.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 03:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

We consider that if people are photographed in a public place then personality rights do not apply. I see no reason why this should be different if people aren't wearing clothes. -mattbuck (Talk) 03:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, on nude beaches photography (and by extension, filming) is not appreciated, and often forbidden. This means that people on nude beaches have a reasonable expectation that they will not be photographed without their explicit permission. The reasoning of "this is a public place, so expect no privacy" does not apply here, I think. MartinD (talk) 11:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I support clarifying this page to make explicit that for nudity (since it's a special case), we require explicit subject permission to be evidenced on request, that "it's in a public place, permission is implied" is not sufficient if a reasonable argument can be made that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy (nude beaches for example as MartinD explains) and images without explicit permission or an airtight argument why it's not needed are subject to summary deletion. ++Lar: t/c 16:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC) PS: However I acknowledge that for clearly public places this is a policy change. ++Lar: t/c 16:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

With respect to places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy: Of course and that's exactly what I said. Furthermore, I still don't see an arguments here, only assertions. I find it bizarre to assert that people in public places where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy... have a reasonable expectation of privacy - perhaps someone could explain this to me. Whether nude beaches is a good example or not is a separate question; perhaps they're not.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:07, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

ah... I think we're getting somewhere! - I think we can reasonably say that people in public, on the beach, have the reasonable expectation of privacy in terms of photos of themselves appearing online (although they don't expect not to be 'seen' by other folk down there). This probably helps heaps in terms of policy development. To further illustrate, I'd say that this image, and the many of its ilk we currently have, should be deleted unless permission of the subject can be obtained, however this image, and the many of its ilk (large public events, for example), carry to my mind a thoroughly different expectation of privacy, and personally, I'm happy with their retention. thoughts? Privatemusings (talk) 21:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

YES! Similarly with public pools (which is a case I deal with frequently) - though it is public, people do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in terms of people taking photos of them. See what happens when you actually make an argument?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 23:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

hooray! - I knew wiki was a wonderful place ;-) - right so I think we (at least Mike and I) are agreeing that there are some contexts where someone in public may have a reasonable expectation of privacy such that they may reasonably object to having their photo taken, and uploaded to commons ('at the beach' would be one such case) - and that we're up for working out how to encode that into this policy. In fact - that's not a bad first stab - how's about this as a '1st draft' wording to be added to this policy;

There are some contexts where someone in public may have a reasonable expectation of privacy such that they may reasonably object to having their photo taken, and uploaded to commons, 'at the beach' would be one such case. Such images will be deleted if uploaded without clear permission being granted by the subject.

there are probably around 10 such images currently on commons which would be up for deletion under this policy extension, so some time for tweaking any rough edges is a good thing, I reckon :-) Privatemusings (talk) 00:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's probably better to simply clarify that this is not a new policy - where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy we require permission already (whether nude or not, whether at a beach or not etc etc). We're just clarifying what that actually means. Otherwise we're back to asserting that "someone in a public place with no reasonable expectation of privacy has a reasonable expectation of privacy" which they don't. The way I see it is that we're simply clarifying pre-existing policy.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Mike in that I don't see this as an extension of policy, it's a codification (maybe) or a clarification... The beach example is instructive. Normally we would think public beach == no privacy expectation. Where there are exceptions to common sense analysis, it's useful (when making the case for deletion or retention, whichever) to explain WHY they are exceptions. ++Lar: t/c 15:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

In the recent DRs, we have also seen the case of a school (or what was supposed to be a school), where I think parents can expect their children not to be shot photographed without their consent. I think it is worth the same kind of reflection, but I don't know whether we can bring a common answer or not: to me, all this seems to boil down to the subjective issue of "reasonable expectations of privacy". --Eusebius (talk) 16:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly Lar - these are arguments that should be made on a DR.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

< - I sort of feel that we're heading towards common ground / consensus - I don't really worry too much about whether this is new policy, a clarification of existing policy, or something else - could anyone suggest any necessary tweaks before the italicised text above is added to the policy? - It will render quite a few images up for deletion too, and it would be good to 'housekeep' as soon as possible. cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 06:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

A clarification may be fine, but you appear to be suggesting that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy on a (typical) beach, which is absolutely not the case in my view. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 06:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

righto - that's the bit we need to measure consensus on - I do indeed believe that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy on a (typical) beach, when relating that expectation to whether or not an image may be published online to a wikimedia project - we'll see others' thoughts... cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 07:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there can be such an expectation of privacy on a beach, and this is emphasized by the kind of publication we have here, allowing and sometimes encouraging re-publication, derivative works and commercial use. I can't see how this can be reasonably expected by the subjects. Personally, I would even go further and apply that to almost anything save public events, but I know few people would follow me on this one, and I will adapt my position with respect to the community consensus. --Eusebius (talk) 07:20, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it will probably be best to make these judgments on a case-by-case basis in DRs where needed. I would not want to categorically state that "on beaches, people have a reasonable expectation to privacy" because that's not true. In some cases it'll be true, and in others not. For example, I think that photographing people on a beach with a normal camera is probably fine in most cases. However, using a long-lens or taking pictures of someone in a tent on a beach (both of which are mentioned as examples on COM:PEOPLE) are probably not OK since those are unreasonable intrusions into someone's privacy. However I wouldn't even want to state these categorically because there will be exceptions in both directions depending on the image. Thus, these arguments shouldn't be codified, but instead should be made on a case-by-case basis as required.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 13:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

given that the proposed language above allows for a case by case discussion, do you think it actually harms the policy at all, Mike? - I perceive some added value. We seem to largely agree by the way - I wonder if you'd concur that this image is likely fine - seems that permission is fairly clearly implied etc. wheras this image should likely be deleted because the subjects are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy from having their image available on a wikimedia project? If we're heading for common ground, I'll make a few deletion nom.s and see where we end up..... :-) Privatemusings (talk) 21:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You should probably make the nominations (with reference to this discussion) regardless.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

< I've done so - I hope it's all formatted ok etc. :-) Privatemusings (talk) 03:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

ps. whilst this observation may be better suited at COM:PEOPLE, while we're here, I thought it might be of interest to note another example of a context where a reasonable expectation of privacy comes into play - it's here. cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 03:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

link to COM:PEOPLE and Commons:Sexual content

I've bunged this links in (partly per the 'moral issues' thread above, and partly just 'cos it seems a good idea) - thoughts most welcome... Privatemusings (talk) 04:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Please stop flooding Commons with your your recurring crusade. This has been made clear in Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archives/User_problems_7#Privatemusings and other rejected campaigns . --Foroa (talk) 07:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

PM was asked not to put forward new policy pages that confusingly overlapped existing policy. Instead he was asked to make suggestions about existing pages... ways they could be improved, clarified or tightened up. That's what he's doing on this page, making suggestions about existing policy. So I would rather see that encouraged than denigrated. That's my view anyway. ++Lar: t/c 13:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

A Proposal to clarify the policy on photographs of identifiable people

Please see Commons:Photographs of identifiable people/Proposal. Comments are welcome at Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people/Proposal. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

fact challenge

there are at least 2 factually incorrect statements in the text of this policy as it exists at the time of this posting:

1. "Images depicting male nudity are regularly nominated for deletion on Commons:Deletion requests and are almost always kept, with the Wikipedia is not censored policy being cited."

not true (or at least not true any longer); if you review the deletion records; "dirty" pictures are being routinely deleted, with little or no "discussion", often in the same day they were nominated. if there exists some vast, mysterious, hidden majority of images depicting nudity that are being nominated & kept, i would very much like so see the evidence :P

2. "Category:Male_reproductive_system and Penis show that the Commons has an ample supply of images of men's groins and penises erect and flaccid, circumcised and uncircumcised, in various skin colours and with varying degrees of pubic hair."

not true; the "sex stuff" on wmc isn't very well organized (big surprise!) & i've worked on improving the categorization (little things like actually specifying species for anatomy-related media categories... ). we do not have anything remotely like "complete coverage" of the topic. if anyone is interested in improving the section, or simply wants to challenge the point, i can list off categories we material we lack, enough of them to double the size of this talk page.

____

unless someone can provide decent-quality proof to refute my fact challenge on the 2 points (which i don't think anyone can... ) in let's say, the next week or so, i'm going to revise the text to remove those claims.

beyond that, this thing is a mushy mess; jammed together & badly written, even by the standards of "guidelines". i'll address my other concerns in separate topics, as needed, once i've had more time to consider the issues.

(clearly i have my own opinions on what needs improving in the text, but i'm open to other points of view, as long as it's not too obviously a one-sided snow job)

if some admin would like to spam-vertise a debate on changes to this guideline, even better...

Lx 121 (talk) 06:58, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Standard regarding female vs male genitalia

As discussed here, this guideline currently proscribes two different standards for how to handle new uploads of photographs of human genitalia. For male genitalia, if we already have a similar photo and the new photo is of lower quality, it is recommended that the new photo be nominated for deletion. For female genitalia, the guideline does not apply and presumably all photos should be kept. Now that we have literally hundreds of photos of both male and female genitalia, I thought maybe it would make sense to include both genders, so I changed the guidelines appropriately. The change, however, was reverted, and I was asked to discuss the issue further.

The scope of Commons specifically says that Commons hosts "educational media". To fulfill this goal, it is presumably necessary to host a wide variety of media related to human genitalia in order to show different types and characteristics. At some point, however, the added educational value of most new genitalia uploads is less than the cost of the bandwidth used to serve them (as they are our most viewed category of images). I do not personally believe that we need to have several thousand photographs of human genitalia on Commons in order to properly educate people about them. Now that we have several hundred of each, we should require that new uploads improve in some way on our existing collection, either by showing something new or being higher quality. Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 00:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

see here for partial response. Privatemusings (talk) 02:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't object too much to this, as long as the decision on whether a new files shows something new or is of a higher quality is a decision taken by consensus and not unilaterally and/or speedily by one or two people. However, I don't really think it is all that necessary, we don't feel the need to restrict new photos of for example Category:British Rail Class 43s of First Great Western in the same manner. So as long as each image is, on it's own merits, educational then we should not be introducing censorship by the back door. Thryduulf (talk) 09:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The guideline says nominate for deletion, not speedy deletion, so any action would have to be by consensus. This is not about censorship, it's about preventing half of Commons bandwidth being devoted to connoisseurs of our extensive collection of nude photos, sometimes by people who are simply using Commons as an anonymous porn hosting service (see this thread or this thread, both from the past week). Kaldari (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The history, as I remember, is that prior to this guideline, many low-quality and obviously redundant photographs of male genitalia were being uploaded. That made it difficult to find the useful images. No similar problem was occurring for female genitalia. If that has changed, I think it may be reasonable to adjust the guideline. Walter Siegmund (talk) 14:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem with female genitalia is users like User:Better than Hustler and User:Stan Spanker think that Commons is simply a free anonymous porn hosting service and intend to use it as such, with no regard to any educational goals. "I just want to upload and catagorize nekkid ladies... for sheer gratuitous purposes"[1] Right now, we have no way to effectively deter people like this who want to abuse the service. I can point them to Commons:Project scope or the notices on the category pages, but they can turn around and point to this guideline which contradicts both of those. If anything, this is simply about bringing this guideline into agreement with Commons:Project scope. No one is suggesting nominating anything for speedy deletion or going on a censorship campaign. It's simply extending the common-sense guidelines that we currently apply to male genitalia so that they apply to female genitalia as well. No one wants to see content censored from Commons simply because it is "explicit". At the same time, no one wants to see Commons turn into a personal porn dumping ground. Kaldari (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, everybody, please read Village pump--Project scope and your FAQ. So that's what your about. Now what do I do. to counter Kaldari's misrepresentation of what I stand for.

"The problem with female genitalia is users like User:Better than Hustler and User:Stan Spanker think that Commons is simply a free anonymous porn hosting service and intend to use it as such, with no regard to any educational goals. 'I just want to upload and catagorize nekkid ladies... for sheer gratuitous purposes'".

No Kaldari (are you even reading my posts or are you just giving them cursory glances?), I thought it was an image hosting service until I read the scope page.
Now I know.
I'm just wondering if my interests and WC can coincide. Kaldari seems to imply that my interest in my colloquially described "nekkid ladies" couldn't possibly coicide with the aims of WC ( which I understand is to help the WM projects, and possible increase in education outside of the WM projects). I was asking if they could.

If not, I would either take my leave or cut down on my edits--perhaps severely. (So you're wrong, Kaldari, I'm not out to abuse the service--as my comments about Flickr indicate.) So far all that Kaldari has given me is a me a terse, somewhat condescending answer, and now he seems to be somewhat talking behind my back.

It's not so much the issue of censorship, but the superfluidity. The guideline pages seem to oppose it, but the nude women categories are overflowing with images, although this is likely true with imgaes in other types of categories.

Now if WC is going to adopt a minimal "only what's necessary" approach, then why isn't there heavy pruning going on--and again, not just the nudes but all categories? If on the other hand, if WC wants 100 pictures of a particular species of elm tree, or nude women facing left, to widen the choice for that perfect image, then I don't see the harm with me uploading a 100 or so images of crotch shots, foot play, women kissing each other, or young nude women tripping along the fields; or categorizing existing images that they have, among other features, crotch shots, foot play, women kissing, or damsels tripping along the feilds.

If anyone disagrees, than please comment--as well as those who agree.  :)

So far my activities have been in categorization--particularly those specific to what I like to see in nudes and the like.

Here are a few files that I have categorized.

File:Eugène Delaplanche - La Musique.jpg
File:Marconi Gaudenzio - Nudo accademico femminile con violino.jpg
File:Theresa Andersson at the Amoeba, Hollywood.jpg
File:Lanfranco, Giovanni - Venus Playing the Harp - 1630-34.jpg
File:Kate Pierson NYC.jpg

Here's a couple I've uploaded.

File:Infrared photograph of American flag.jpg
File:Infrared photograpg of maples.jpg
File:Iran warns women over slack dressing (71).jpg

Here are my more pornographic ones:

File:Funk Dance 7.jpg
File:Funk Dance 6.jpg
File:Young woman.jpg
File:Sleeping-1.jpg

Again, I don't see the issue here as much of nudity or not, genitalia or not, but rather if we are going to have superfluidity in many categories, why should they be any different? If superfluidity is permitted, I'll likely continue. If not, I'll stop; but it won't solve the superfluity problem (again, be it of nudes or not).
Better than Hustler (talk) 17:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This issue isn't about you in particular. I'm just trying to resolve a discrepancy between our scope policy and the guidelines given here so that we are able to give clear guidance to anyone using Commons, rather than having to re-debate the issue at the Village Pump every week. Kaldari (talk) 17:51, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

First off, thank you Kaldari for a neutral reply.
Again, my issue isn't totally about nudity or genitalia verses none. You want to restrict it to usefulness to WM, or other educational purposes, fine. But you've yet to answer my questions, on either page regarding:
(1) The (apparent) superfluidity of nudes and non-nude images. If you and others want to prune the nude categories, fine. But if you ignore the other categories, then it reveals an anti-nude anti-genitalia bias in WC.
(2) If my interest in categorizing and uploading nudes (or toplessness, or women's feet, or similar) psudonymously and for gratuitous purposes necessarily conflicts with WC scope. Do you think that the creator, much less the subject, who made and uploaded this file (Ejaculation Educational Demonstration.OGG) did so for just lambent purposes? Both might be getting more gratification in uploading it than from the actual stimuli that lead to his coitus. Nonetheless, it arguably serves a pretty educational purpose. Again, my question remains unanswered.
(3) If the answer to (2) is still an emphatic and collective "no"; and the answer to (1) is "ignore the superfluous non-nude images behind the curtain!", then what are the alternatives to WC--keeping in mind that Flickr and other sites prohibit anonymous registrations.

If you feel that this is not the page for my questions, then why did you direct me here? If you felt that I could contribute a thought or two here, I have; but I will repeat and clarify: either we permit lots of images for all categories, or if we are going to prune one type of category, we'll prune them all; or otherwise 'fess up to an anti-nude, anti-genitalia, anti-sex, and censorious bias.Better than Hustler (talk) 19:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Why is it impossible to suggest enforcing our scope policy without being accused of censorship? In case you aren't aware, we already prune the male genitalia categories. I'm only suggesting that we do this without bias to one gender or the other. I'm not trying to create bias, I'm trying to remove bias. I support doing this for any categories that have more images than are educationally useful, especially if it seems those categories are actively being used for purposes other than education. Kaldari (talk) 22:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Better than Hustler's point is that why do we/should we have a policy about pruning superfluous images of genitalia (male and/or female) when we don't have a policy about pruning superfluous images of things other than genitalia (trains, women's feet, footbridges, etc)? Personally, I don't think images of nudity need special treatment - we should either prune low quality, duplicate images of everything or do no such pruning at all. Thryduulf (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If we somehow decide that all genitalia photographs are likely to be useful (and thus we don't need to prune the categories at all), that's fine with me (other than the fact that I think we will be wasting a lot of bandwidth). My main point is that we need to remove the gender double-standard as there is no reason why female nude photographs are inherently more within scope than male nude photographs. They should be evaluated on an equal basis. Kaldari (talk) 23:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

My primary concern is clutter, i.e., finding the useful images among all the poor-quality and otherwise unsuitable images. That criterion suggests to me that it can be helpful to have a means of discouraging the uploading of such images. I support guidance to that effect, as long as we continue to encourage those new contributors who may become good contributors with time. Gender-neutral guidance seems to me to be a worthy goal; it is difficult to justify gender bias or prejudice. Similar concerns over photographs of British Rail or other subjects are probably better addressed on another project page. Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with those reasons for pruning, my point is why is it necessary to have a specific policy about images containing nudity? If Commons is truly not censored then we should treat such images the same as we treat any others - discourage the uploading of poor quality images for any subject matter (and the example below of kittens is a very good one). If we need a policy about images of nudity then absolutely it should be non-discriminatory, but why do we need one? Thryduulf (talk) 15:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Kaldari,
Where did I accuse you of censorship? Indeed, where did I protest against censorship? I begun all this text-posting by truthfully disclosing my activities, reasons, and asking if it's okay, and if not then what. If you want to prune female genitalia categories, or nude women, as much as male genitalia, knock yourself out. It's just that it would seem more becoming, if not logical, to prune all categories; and also keeping in mind that of the still little I've read in a few pages here in WC suggests that male genitalia is often done poorly. As for this saving bandwidth, the whole Wikimedia Foundation suggests that it's big enough. Btw, just how many files are in WC? I wouldn't be surprised if it was 100x that of Encyclopedia Britannica.

As was pointing out in a post by someone at the Village Pump, here in the archives, that Category:Kittens seems to have a whole lotta files, and it seems that a lot of WC'ers are Beatles fans (Category:The Beatles). Now if your worried about the hogging up of bandwidth, let's keep these in mind; but if people protest that they need the wide selection of files to chose the best, then let's also have all the nudes and the genitalia as well--provided the big computer in Florida can handle it.

As for clutter, I rather risk that than scarcity--as is the case with my threatened File:D'arcy Wretzky 2.jpg.  :-(    (  :D  )    Better than Hustler (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"otherwise 'fess up to an anti-nude, anti-genitalia, anti-sex, and censorious bias". I don't have time right now to dig up the hit rankings for images, but I know for a fact there are no kittens on it. Regardless, this discussion is not about scope, or pruning, or nudity in general, it's about specifically whether we should have separate guidelines for each gender. Kaldari (talk) 21:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

So, apart from the bigger issues of category pruning in general and nude category pruning specifically, does anyone object if I bring the existing guidelines into parity so that both genders are judged by the same criteria? We can discuss whether or not we need such guidelines at all below. Kaldari (talk) 21:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"I do not personally believe that we need to have several thousand photographs of human genitalia on Commons in order to properly educate people about them," kinda implied pruning. Sorry if I misunderstood ya.  :)  Better than Hustler (talk) 16:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It was probably my fault for conflating the two issue to begin with. I just assumed that the logic behind pruning in general was well accepted at this point (as it has been outlined in our scope policy for some time), but perhaps I was wrong. Kaldari (talk) 17:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

---

Kaldari -- as I stated on the Village Pump, the "double standard" is that we get a significant number of photos of guys who shoot low-quality photos of their penises with cell-phone cameras while drunk, and then upload the resulting images to Commons, where they would rapidly become redundant with endless other quite similar low-quality cell-phone camera photos of penises, if we didn't do a little judicious pruning. As a matter of practical experience and observed behavior, the problem does not really quantitatively manifest itself in the same form with women... AnonMoos (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but the actual reason for pruning has nothing to do with whether the images are male or female. We also get a disproportionate number of low-quality genitalia images from white people, but we don't have a clause here saying that black genitalia images are excluded from pruning. There are a dozen ways that we could identify specific characteristics that are common of our redundant low-quality genitalia uploads, but there's no point in doing that. All we have to say is that redundant low-quality genitalia photo uploads might be out of scope. There's no reason for us to go out of our way to exclude a certain class of images from that statement. Kaldari (talk) 17:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The basic reasons for pruning have no particular connection to differentiation between male vs. female -- but as a practical matter, it's observable that the way that Commons actually functions in the real world, it has been considered necessary to prune certain types of low-quality and rather duplicative or redundant photographs of males more often (some would say "much more often") than corresponding photographs of females... AnonMoos (talk) 18:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In that case, how about we just leave the "New uploads" section basically how it is (with its emphasis on penis pictures) and just delete the "Women" section? Otherwise we are saying that even low-quality, redundant, completely un-educational photos of female genitalia are exempt from our scope requirements (simply because they aren't used in vandalism) which is frankly ridiculous. Kaldari (talk) 18:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not just rewrite the women's section to say that "Historically photographs of female genitalia have been less problematic on Commons, but if there is a build up of many redundant low-quality similar images, or if there is evidence that images have been uploaded for the purpose of being used in vandalism, such images can be deleted following the same guidelines as for male photographs"? -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

First of all, we shouldn't say that any of them "can be deleted". They need to be "nominated for deletion". Secondly, why do there have to be "many" such images in order for our scope policy to kick in? If there is just one blurry redundant un-educational female genitalia photo, it's still just as much out of scope as it would be if there were 50. I just don't understand why there is so much resistance to letting our scope policy apply to female genitalia (as it does to all other images on Commons). Why are these images so special that they need to be an exception? Kaldari (talk) 00:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Do we need a nude photo pruning policy?

Since that's what everyone seems to really want to discuss, I've create a new section just for such a discussion. Please use the previous section only for discussing differences between the male and female guidelines. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 21:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we could do with pruning some of the lower res ones, and generally - we have lots of awful pictures on every subject, with much better ones available, but we keep the crap ones anyway which dilutes the ability to find good ones. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

As is seems to indicate here about "What Commons is not," though there seem to be a part--some other page--were pornograhic images are severely limited--but I'm still new here.Better than Hustler (talk) 16:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I assume you're refering to Commons:SCOPE#Censorship, which is not about "severely limiting" anything, but striking a balance between limiting abuse, cluttering up our categories with cruft, and opposing censorship (which is precisely the position I support). Kaldari (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Comment I think that it is a good idea to remove bad quality images. We need images of flowers, houses, penises, cars, tits and a lot of other things but we do not need bad images (low resolution, blurred images etc.).

In many cases penis images is nominated with the reason "Porno", "Offensive" or whatever. Perhaps we could find a good place to write that that "Porno" is not a good reason to delete images. It is better to use "Low resolution, blurred, not used, we have better images - example: File:Some penis.jpg." as a reason.".

I would prefer that we had a Pruning policy for every kind of material. Often images that get nominated with the reason "superseeded by..." gets closed as kept. If the deletion reason was "Low res image. Not used. We have a better version here: (link)" then I would not be surprised if the result was delete. --MGA73 (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

It should be nominated with a reference to the reasons given in Template:Nopenis... -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Supposedly "low quality" images should not be deleted if there is no higher quality alternative. The whole discussion is the usual prurient excuse to remove sexual content. And yes we need a "nude photo" policy, to protect them from unsophisticated people like Jimbo Wales. The "benevolent" dictator.--SummerWithMorons (talk) 15:05, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

2 relevant points:

1. if we are going to have a "pruning policy", then it should be a general policy, NOT specific to sexual content. the community has never reached anything like consensus on this kind of a restriction on sexual content; the community has also never reached anything like consensus on a "general pruning policy"... (i'm not sure if there's even been a significant draft proposal & vote on that).

2. the "nopenis" template is NOT an expression of official commons policy; & it was NEVER approved by a community vote. it represents the views only of the users who created & employ it. any valid arguements for deletion should be based on commons policy & guidelines. citing the template is just another shorthand way of failing to provide a proper rationale for deletion.

Lx 121 (talk) 18:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism section

the notes re: vandalism are (considerably!) out of date.

a wide array of highly effective tools for blocking/cleaning up vandalism now exists, & most of the wm projects are using them actively.

it's not normal practice (anymore) to press for deletion of images "because they are being used by vandals"; that was always problematic re: not censored, & it's no longer necessary, with the tagging, protection, & blocking (etc.) tools now available (& a large enough pool of users/admins who are competent in using them).

the section should be re-drafted to reflect this.

Lx 121 (talk) 18:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

+1, and while at it please rename the section proposed guideline to history or similar, while there is no third proposal. –Be..anyone (talk) 19:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

-1, respectfully I have to disagree. "Not censored" is not an argument, because we donna delete all let's say penises, but only bad-quality ones or copyvios. Unfortunately there are users not interested in common's policy. The two issus of that sections are hence not wrong or "out of date". --Yikrazuul (talk) 19:05, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Age-based categorization

I have just created Template:Age group definitions for nudity, for use on category pages that contain nude images of specific age groups (e.g., Category:Nude girls), and/or contain subcategories that do the same (e.g., Category:Nude males). The classification system is adapted from the existing "Definitions" given in some categories, like Category:Girls, which in turn were based on discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/05/Category:Young women. Interested parties, please discuss at Template talk:Age group definitions for nudity. - dcljr (talk) 16:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, I guess we're discussing this here.... - dcljr (talk) 23:22, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Renaming all the "Young women" categories to "Adolescent girls" categories was one of the stupidest bot-botcheries ever at Commons (and people are still dealing with the resultant nonsensicalities many months later), so not too sure why you would want to emulate that... AnonMoos (talk) 02:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

"Young women" categories was one of the stupidest category names one could invent. We need more precise categorisation; --Foroa (talk) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, doing an indiscriminate mass-replace of "young women" to "adolescent girls" in all category names resulted in the false categorization of thousands of images, and was an extremely idiotic and unconstructive maneuver (not to mention bone-headed). Furthermore, the discussion was tucked away in a rather obscure and out-of-the-way place, and most people had no chance to comment, and no idea that any change was planned, until the bot-botchery deed was already done... AnonMoos (talk) 20:06, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Many (most?) nude images contain people of unknown age. Like most models, they have a variety of makeup and surgeries to alter their apparent age. Coarse granularity "young" versus "old" is one thing, but the finer you go the harder it is. Don't think this would be possible, much less worthwhile. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with AnonMoos and Dcoetzee. Please do not do this. -84user (talk) 17:32, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

My comment copied from Template talk:Age group definitions for nudity:

The main reason I created this template is because the children/adolescents/adults distinction that was discussed at Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/05/Category:Young women seemed to be a reasonable guideline to adopt, but doesn't seem to have been followed up on very much (at least, not consistently) since 2010. In particular, there still seem to be a significant number of images of women categorized as "girls", and the various "adolescent" categories are still woefully underpopulated. So I figured adding a prominent notice about recommended definitions to relevant categories (e.g., Category:Nude girls, Category:Nude females, etc.) might help to "encourage" these guidelines. Objections? Suggestions? - dcljr (talk) 20:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Now my reply to the other comments above...

• AnonMoos, you seem to be objecting mainly to what was done over a year ago. If you think the category system was screwed up then, okay, let's figure out how to fix it now. What system are you actually advocating that we use? Surely not how things currently stand, since you lament the "nonsensicalities" that remain... Also, what "obscure" discussion are you talking about, if not the one at CFD (see link above)? Please point me to it.
• Dcoetzee, I'm not sure what images you're referring to regarding the "makeup" and "surgery" issues. Sounds like you're talking about porn stars or something. Most images I've run across so far that I have put into "adolescent" categories are either old black and white photos from "human anatomy/development" type books or "nudist/naturist" type images. In any case, as with AnonMoos, I'm curious what system you're advocating instead.
• 84user and others, do you realize that the age-based scheme in the template is almost identical to what has been displayed on dozens of category pages for over a year? How is using this template any worse than the current situation?

General comments: Isn't it better to have a (more) precise guideline that people can try to follow, with varying degrees of success, rather than using the almost meaningless term "young woman"? "Young" compared to what? "Woman" as in "of legal age", or not? The template gives precise definitions based on two major division points that are pretty clear, even if not always trivial to determine: puberty and (the most commonly used) age of majority. Yes, there will be borderline/ambiguous cases, but at least the template moves people toward using a single system, rather than everyone using their own interpretation of the term "young woman". Actually, this is assuming that people prefer using "young woman", which isn't even being used anymore. So, again: what's the harm in putting this new template on relevant category pages? Most of them have the same information already, anyway. If someone has a better system, please outline it here. - dcljr (talk) 23:28, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

"Young women/men" was a stupid thing too because it was hardly understandable and far too vague. I prefer the current solution even if it is not perfect (the question of age vs. physical appearance will be eternal). The solution could be to add some "Undefined age" cats for files where the appearance would lead to debates about the age (this is, for instance, the case of the files included in Category:Nudist adolescent girls for which many users have already removed the cat, claiming that none were adolescent - while I pesonally claim they're not more than 18 judging by their face and/or body). --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 20:28, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Give your opinion and/or bring alternative solutions

Hi everyone. There's a discussion for which we would need your opinions. More than opinions, we need alternative and concrete solutions if you dislike the solution discussed there : Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/10/Category:Nude or partially nude people with electric toothbrushes.
Thanks in advance... and please be constructive, for the sake of the project ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 20:23, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposed addition regarding categories

I suggest adding something in this direction:

Categorisation

Categorisation is essential to ensure that Commons content can be used effectively by end users. When it comes to nudity, we can consider the needs of four groups of users:

1. Users who are looking for nudity (for the educational purposes of COM:SCOPE), and wish to easily find nudity, organised in a clear nudity category tree
2. Users who are not looking for nudity, but might find it useful if they happen to find it
3. Users who are not looking for nudity, and have no use for it if they happen to find it
4. Users who are not looking for nudity, and may be put off from further using Commons to find their desired content, if they find nudity in locations it is entirely unexpected.

• Group 1 are best served by a nudity category tree which adequately categorises nudity content, allowing them to focus on it
• Group 4 are best served by a nudity category tree which does not merely add nudity categories to nudity content, but where there is overlap with non-nudity category trees, separates them out. The principle of avoiding over-categorization will often achieve this objective anyway, if the needs of Group 1 are already served.
• Group 3 is best served by the same approach as Group 4 - to them nudity is merely clutter in their search, in the same way as miscategorisation.
• Group 2 is the only special case. They can be served by ensuring that the nudity category tree, where it overlaps with non-nudity category trees, is not firewalled off, but interlinked in the usual way (subcategories). If nudity may be of unexpected use to them, they can effectively investigate this through those subcategories.

In sum, nudity content which overlaps with non-nudity category trees should be categorised according to the twin principles of principle of least astonishment and principle of usefulness. For example, the average user would be surprised to find nudity in a "muppets" category, and it is highly unlikely the average user looking at the category is looking for nude images involving muppets. Therefore, such images should be separated out in a way which both minimises surprise and maximises ease of finding for those users actually looking for such pictures. Some form of nude subcategory, properly placed in the muppets category tree and in the nudity category tree, is an effective compromise that meets everyone's needs (with perhaps a partial exception of Group 4, who may to some extent object even to such subcategories).

Rd232 (talk) 03:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Prop. add. re. cats: Discussion

I'd suggest replacing "Muppets" with something else, since I think we deleted that image. Category:Cooking, perhaps? Category:Nude cooking is a good example of the sort of categorization scheme you're aiming for. --Kramer Associates (talk) 04:27, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me. Rd232 (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

My annoyance with the principle of least astonishment is the overcategorisation it does lead to. For instance, we have an image of someone masturbating with an electric toothbrush. This should be in the category electric toothbrushes, but that violates POLA, so it goes into "masturbating with electric toothbrushes". But that then clearly requires "masturbating with toothbrushes", followed by "masturbating with oral hygiene implements"... etc, 100 layers of category because we have a single image of someone masturbating with a toothbrush. -mattbuck (Talk) 05:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This is not exactly "overcategorisation" by the Commons:Categories definition - let's not degrade the terms we have by loose usage. The problem you describe could be characterised as underpopulated categories (not enough images of people masturbating with these types of things), or else overly-specific categories from the point of view of the nudity category tree (preference would be to merge, if this didn't lose subcategories from the non-nudity category tree). This is a common enough problem; the only thing special about this case is the desire to create subcategories as soon as possible, rather than to perhaps wait for a decent amount of content to come along before making it. There's always a bit of chicken-and-egg thing here; having the categories early can encourage categorisation and even uploading, at the expense of having nearly-empty categories, perhaps for a long time. In this case, I think it's a trade-off worth having. Anyway, enough generality: one practical interim solution for this is to explicitly allow some overcategorisation within the nudity category tree, allowing categorisation in both the ideal category in terms of the intersection of the category trees (the very specific one), plus one more general category within the nudity tree. Overcategorisation is easily fixable by bot, so this deliberate partial exception to the rule can be pruned later according to some agreed logic (eg if the subcategory gets sufficiently large, remove the overcategorisation from images in it). Rd232 (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If you create a subcategory with the name "nude" in it, the first thing users will be seeing and astonished by is a nudity subcategory.

The technical solution suggested by WMF to allow users deactivate content they don't want to view seems preferable. --  Docu  at 06:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Why not do both? We could have nudity subcats and a way to allow the user to hide nudity subcats from view. --Kramer Associates (talk) 06:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

That would be the most efficient (partly because it would leverage a system which also generates use for those looking for the content as well as those seeking to avoid it) and I argued to the WMF that if they do a filter it should use the category system; but it doesn't look like it will. Rd232 (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the nudity subcategory may still be astonishing in itself; but less astonishing than having the nude images randomly mixed in. That's why the proposal is a compromise. I suppose it's true that if the filter is ever actually done and works, it would also have to apply to the subcategories themselves, but that's not our problem, it's WMF's. Rd232 (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• 0 I strongly oppose to add this proposal to this guideline for the following reasons - more reasons at Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/10/Category:Nude or partially nude people with electric toothbrushes (please read!) which was effectively a useless discussion now as rd232 did not mention it at all.
  • 1 First of all: I think you were pushing (kind of again) too fast with already preparing a finished text to be added. Discussion was a bit short and I think you are pushing the groups away from consensus by acting like this. Of course, I really do assume you meant it to be helpful.
  • 2 A strange grouping of users. And: we do not create whole category trees (see mattbuck 05:25, 1 December 2011 above) for single groups of users. I do not think those phobia cats are the right way. Do you create a own cat "Dead people in Berlin" just because you need to hide a photo of a dead person/body? And "Mohammed pictures in Berlin"? Just to demonstrate... This does even scale worse than the whole category system itself (without phobia cats).
  • 3 Leave the principle of least astonishment where it belongs to and may be valid for: User interface design of software. For more arguments against this see the filter discussions. We are talking about categories - a method to find content (not to hide)! I dislike having an image filter and the same applies for those phobia categories - which are forcefully switched on for all users and creates a category mess. Possibly a duplication of the whole category tree. ...
  • 3b Sorry, if you want never be surprised (whereas this is simply meant as "new" here) with new facts and content you will stay dumb.
  • 4What the Wikimedia Foundation wants is totally irrelevant here when it comes to content.
  • 5It is simply insulting against humans to filter them out. Human are nothing bad - we, probably, are all humans. I am sick of seeing those categories instead of regarding naked humans as the most natural thing of the world (at least more than it is currently here at COM).
  • 6 Due to all those "Nude or partially nude people" cats we have people saying: "Look, those fetish Commonists - they even have a category for nude people on jumping balls!!!!11". That is bad for Commons' reputability and seriousness.
  • 7 Your solution for group 2 (which I think is the most natural group and not a small group) is: "effectively investigate this through those subcategories" No that is not a solution. Those subcats are hiding content from this group because they need a click more. They cannot view it with all the other equally relevant content.
  • 8"... highly unlikely the average user looking at the category is looking for nude images involving muppets. Therefore, such images should be separated out ..." quite a short reasoning, hm? Your felt unlikeliness of expecting doesn't tell us anything about the usefulness of the content if found. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 13:28, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
    • I wasn't ignoring that category discussion, but I thought it best if someone summarised it here, and I didn't have time. I'm sorry if you think the proposed text is done too soon, but I was trying to summarise what is to a certain extent practice already, whilst also trying to summarise the most basic arguments. My reply to Mattbuck above gives a direction on how issues arising from categorisation can be addressed. By the way, I've seen your point 6 before, and I'm surprised you don't realise how weak it is; it cannot be better for Commons' reputation to mix pictures of nudity with jumping balls with pictures of jumping balls. Finally, a small part of the problem here is what you might call "category focus": a category for "jumping balls" can focus tightly on jumping balls (which often means literal closeups), or it can mean including every picture that has any kind of jumping ball in it. You cannot dismiss the "principle of least astonishment" as applying only to user interface design, because it applies also to categorisation. A completely different, offline example: I expect to be able to reach into my sock drawer without being confronted by a set of kitchen knives. There may be a perfectly good reason for my partner placing them there: it's a special set decorated with socks on the handle. But it's unexpected, and doubly useless: bad for my use of socks, and bad for my ability to find the knives when I want them. PS Another thought, on "filtering": the ideal solution would (perhaps) be not to have category pages at all, but to rely solely on search, Google-style, with options for user-choice filters on licensing, image size, etc etc. Category names would be converted into searchable (perhaps Boolean-combinable) tags. But that's not going to happen, so we need to substitute other forms of filtering to give the user control over what they want, which includes both things they want to find, and things they don't want to find. Your perspective seems to insist on denying users that control just because our technology is lacking, doesn't it? (I mean, you wouldn't deny users the ability to filter nudity out of a search on some kind of Thou Shalt See Nudity principle, would you?) Rd232 (talk) 14:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Group two is "Users who are not looking for nudity, but might find it useful if they happen to find it." I may be being generous in considering this group at all; I rather think it's a tiny group. If you need nudity for an educational purpose, you know it. Cheap thrills encountered while looking for something else don't count. You may think nudity is an arbitrary criterion for picture use, but the fact is in daily life there are few educational purposes for which a nude version of a picture is a substitute for a non-nude one. Either you need nudity (because that's the point) or you need non-nudity (because it would be a ridiculous intrusion which would make the image useless). Rd232 (talk) 14:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
        • 6 Bad for Commons' reputation if we "mix pictures of nudity with jumping balls with pictures of jumping balls." You are just making up facts which aren't. Why should it be bad? Where is the fact? Probably you cannot provide it. Why should be a censored Commons (although we claim it isn't) be better for Commons' reputation?
          Our categories should contain what they name. If you filter out (based on stupid WMF arguments) parts of the content they do not anymore show the content they should show. A part is missing. Accessible harder and treated like dirt. No, if we had a tag style search I would not like to disable filtering by some tags. What a strange idea to destroy a search engine. I just would like to see that what google does with its "safe search" (censorship by default). If someone excludes specific tags from a requested result list why shouldn't this be respected?! --Saibo (Δ) 21:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
          • 6 - mixing images... if you don't get it intuitively, or based on what I've already said, I don't know what else to say. As for "notcensored" - I used to get p*ssed off on en.wp with the abuse of that policy; there is enough actual censorship in the world that we should be ashamed to use the term for merely trying to give users better control over their user experience - both those who are looking for X and those who are looking for not-X. Well, at least you accept the principle of giving users control over their search when it's a tag style search; so can you explain better why that principle is suddenly null and void just because we're stuck with categories? Rd232 (talk) 21:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
            • Re @ your last question: Read my arguments again and you will find out why. --Saibo (Δ) 22:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
              • Do you mean Our categories should what they name.? Because this leaves out the crucial verb! Do categories have to include every image that remotely touches on their topic? Is that helpful to end users? I would put in the verb focus on: categories should focus on what they name, and leave secondary or intersecting uses to subcategories. I believe that for all topics, not just nudity. (Actually, given the emotional charge of discussing categorisation of nudity, it would be really helpful if we could come up with some unrelated example, because many of the "how do we categorise things usefully" issues are not specific to nudity at all.) Rd232 (talk) 22:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
                • Should have been "Our categories should contain what they name." Sorry for this. By that I meant that not for arbitrary reasons some files should be pushed to subcategories without a neutral need (like "too many files on one category") for it.
                  Tips / guidelines on "what belongs in a cat" should be in Commons:Categories and the talk about it to the talk page there. In fact, I couldn't find some tips on this on this page by a quick(!) search. --Saibo (Δ) 23:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• • "6 Bad for Commons' reputation if we "mix pictures of nudity with jumping balls with pictures of jumping balls." You are just making up facts which aren't. Why should it be bad? Where is the fact? Probably you cannot provide it." Okay, I'm baffled by this comment by Saibo and I find it 100% impossible to assume good faith. I find it disturbing to say the least, and if I wasn't tired I would probably file a request for administrator intervention. There is really no way I could see this as legitimate and the rest is problematic. Anyone trying to argue that a bait and switch is appropriate, especially when it can deal with shocking and highly inappropriate images, is not really someone I would consider as having the best interests of this community in mind. Larry Sanger mentioned this exact kind of argument when he left as being part of what would lead to the downfall of the Wiki. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
    • I am so lucky that you are tired, hm? What is your problem? What do you mean by "bait and switch"? --Saibo (Δ) 16:23, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
      • w:Bait-and-switch Ottava Rima (talk) 17:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
        • I still don't get what you mean, sorry. --Saibo (Δ) 17:28, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• Separate the images - sexual or nude versions of a topic are rarely important to most topics and not what people would search for. Basically, you'd be misleading any user and providing them with items they would not want in a shocking manner. That is not what Commons is for. Either separate them or delete the images. There can be no other credible option. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I disagree strongly. Are you saying, for example, that Goya's Maja, vestida ('Clothed Maja') belongs in a completely different place than his Maja, desnuda ('Naked Maja') or that when I am photographing the annual Fremont, Seattle Summer Solstice Parade (watched by tens of thousands of people in Seattle, and in which about 10% of the marchers are naked, most of them body painted) the photos in which someone happens to be naked belong in an entirely different place than the rest of the parade? I agree that there are places where the principle of least astonishment clearly does call for a separate category: Félicien Rops erotic caricatures of Saint Teresa, for example, or a picture of someone cooking naked, not an expectation in a category about cooking. Still, as noted, there are places where the principle of least astonishment means that nude images are not a surprising inclusion in a broader category. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Once you try to conflate paintings with photographic images of nude or sexualized non-notable individuals, you lost any ability to make an argument. Also, just because there is a parade with naked people doesn't mean it belongs in a category or even on Commons. Your premise is flawed and the comments above are the exact kind that I strongly believe need to be prevented from being enacted if we are ever going to be a working, serious project. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
      • That's not really a helpful response. You have the germ of a point, but you're not actually making it. Rd232 (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
        • Commons seems to me to be a "working, serious project" already. --Kramer Associates (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
          • Not if it is responsible for quite a lot of jokes about having "too many white penises", being "pornopedia", blacklisted by many different school groups, etc. Having thousands of hard core and soft core pornographic images that would never be used except on a user page makes us look really bad and harms the legitimate pictures. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
            • If we aren't blacklisted by some schools, then we aren't doing the job of being a source of universal knowledge. Universal knowledge includes "dangerous" knowledge as well as safe.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
            • Ottava, so you do propose self-censorship to escape censorship? A great idea. COM:NOTCENSORED --Saibo (Δ) 16:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
              • Some of these comments I really can't help wonder if people are, offline, going into shops and pulling porn mags off top shelves and mixing them in with the comics section, on the grounds that the porn mags contain some comic strips and drawing any distinction between the two is "censorship". Rd232 (talk) 16:57, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
          • "If we aren't blacklisted by some schools, then we aren't doing the job of being a source of universal knowledge." The two parts of this sentence conflict. We are also not a source of "universal knowledge" but of cited, encyclopedic information that is neutral, not libellous, not made up, not plagiarized, etc. We have standards and those are something that should not be undermined by some people who want to defend the undefendable pictures put in undefendable places. Any claim about "censorship" is wrong, unfounded, and completely inappropriate. By having the ability to delete, not hosting copyrighted information, etc., we already commit censorship so any argument that we should not regulate ourselves to standards because of using the word as if it is shocking or bad is just silly. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
            • We will not edit Wikipedia to be acceptable to all schools; we will not lie about evolution, history of various religions and birth control in ways that various schools will demand, and even if we would, there is no one lie they will all accept.
            • We have standards. Part of the reason this debate goes on is because the majority standards of the editors clash with your standards. If you don't understand what we mean by "Commons is not censored", I'm not going to try to explain it to you, but that is a standard that is well supported by the majority of editors.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
              • "We will not edit Wikipedia to be acceptable to all schools" Then you are in direct conflict with the educational mission of this project and I no longer have confidence in your ability to participate here. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• • • There are edge cases where astonishment is not the usual response from people familiar with the subject, but may be from people unfamiliar with it. The obvious conclusion from that is part of drawing a balance here may be adding a clarificatory note, for example to a category about the Seattle Summer Solstice Parade. That way someone coming across it who was just looking for "parade" pictures and didn't have a clue would have some sense of fair warning. And I think this line of thinking of a clarificatory note on a category may be helpful more generally: if putting one seems a sensible thing to do, then there's a fair chance that nudity may be OK within it. If putting a note seems utterly ridiculous ("warning: this category about electric toothbrushes may contain images of nudity") then that's a good sign that a subcategory should be employed. Rd232 (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Oh yes, of course: Caution: this category may contain images and looking over 10h at all the many images can lead to serious health damage! like Caution: Coffee is hot. I love that US bullshit. --Saibo (Δ) 21:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
        • Cor blimey mate, did you just take me for a Yank? Made me spill my tea, you did an' all! And it was hot! :P Rd232 (talk) 22:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
        • the "warning" element is just a minor variation on the theme of having helpful category descriptions. On some level you're trying to insist that there is no difference at all between nude pictures and non-nude, whilst at the same time treating the distinction differently than any other distinction (eg knives and forks: this category is mostly knives but includes some images with a mixture of cutlery is useful information of an equivalent sort). Rd232 (talk) 22:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• • • • • • I think nobody is against describing the nature of the Seattle Summer Solstice Parade on the category page. You do not need a warning sign (nor a policy change) for that. --LPfi (talk) 14:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• • Just to clarify: Ottava Rima, are you agreeing or disagreeing with the proposal? --Kramer Associates (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
    • If you have to ask... Ottava Rima (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• Support Sounds like a sensible proposal. --JN466 17:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
• I share concerns about needing to maintain a parallel category tree all the way up. Powers (talk) 21:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I made the suggestion above that it doesn't need to be parallel all the way up, if we decide on an explicit and limited overcategorisation rule exception: allow a file to be categorised in the specific nudity subcategory (eg Category:Nude people with electric toothbrushes), and also in whatever is the most general nudity category that seems helpful (eg Category:Nude people with household objects), even though the subcategory is contained within it. In exchange, leave out all the intermediate categories which would just be matroshkas for the specific nudity subcategory (eg Category:Nude people with toothbrushes, Category:Nude people with oral implements, etc), at least until much more content in that area arrives over time. Rd232 (talk) 21:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
    • But if the categories aren't parallel all the way up, it makes the images harder to find. For instance, someone looking for oral implements in general would not see that there are pictures of nude people with oral implements without drilling down to the toothbrushes category. Powers (talk) 21:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
      • "Without drilling down into to the toothbrushes category..." er, no. People looking for nude people with oral implements will look at (i) category:oral implements tree and (ii) category:nude people with... tree. We do not need to pretend that people are capable of only looking at one category when they are thinking about the intersection of two concepts, and therefore force ourselves to squash everything into the one where the vast majority of users will have no use for it, for fear that some poor thrillseeker, too busy coming up with a reason why looking at people masturbating with oral implements is "educational", can't find the time to look in the more obvious place for such images. Rd232 (talk) 22:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
        • Yes, you certainly can make such concerns sound ridiculous when we're talking about that particular category intersection. It's a shame that such an edge case is the one that was selected as the ur-example in this discussion, as it's really not typical. Powers (talk) 19:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

 Oppose We have had variants of this discussion. Just one note: what do you think of the category "Nude children playing". If the images are in Category:Children playing the images are as innocent as they are. I might very well use an image with some nude children in an article on the topic. On the other hand the nude category could develop into a disaster. --LPfi (talk) 12:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Add me, caring for folks with one of the two pathological (pro or con) interests in nudity on the level of categories only makes it worse. Having said this my own pathological interest in this topic does not cover to find the known toothbrush example in an ordinary toothbrush category. I also do not like contrived category trees, nude or otherwise, ending up with almost empty sub-sub-sub-categories. How about a neutral Category:Odd (ab)uses of common tools or similar? –Be..anyone (talk) 05:59, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

 Comment I'm starting to see why the WMF decided to force the image filter (as far as they can): there is little sign of the community being able to agree to anything resembling an acceptable compromise. A substantial and highly vocal minority seems to insist that nudity and sexual content cannot be given the special treatment which current social customs in every major modern society require. Personally, I think their solution to the issue is wrong, but I'm starting to understand their point of view - certainly better than I understand those who insist that there is no issue. (And FWIW I say this as someone whose family is very comfortable with household nudity, in private; and as someone who is no stranger to the pleasures of images of sexual content.) Rd232 (talk) 16:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• Since you mention "highly vocal minority" another not unimportant note: here isn't a discussion of the community but instead of the English speaking community (and currently: of the highly active and well informed sub-community). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Language barriers just make it harder to reach agreement; this doesn't undermine my basic point, but support it. Also, regardless of what % of what community supports any given approach, we're only talking about active Wikimedians participating in discussions; there are many more end users affected whose concerns are not heard directly. Rd232 (talk) 16:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• • The poll on the image filter showed that all but a small minority is opposed to the images. It just happens that the small minority is more vocal in a manner that leads to the majority being ignored, shouted down, or having our policies completely violated. It is a shameful situation. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
    • The "poll on the image filter" was nothing more than badly designed. And it is even more wrong to extract information from it which isn't in. --Saibo (Δ) 17:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
      • "was nothing more than badly designed." This is a case of your personal opinion making you completely unable to view this site and the rest of the community in an objective manner. You wont even recognize that a lot of people have serious issue with the porn that has no legitimate reason to be uploaded, just sits there, and is mostly done by white European male exhibitionists without any legitimate contribution to an encyclopedia or anything that can be called "educational" without laughter or sarcasm. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:21, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
        • So logical, and useful - thanks for this comment and that I do not need to continue to "talk" with you. --Saibo (Δ) 22:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
          • Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Your statements on any Commons related topic became null and void when you blatant ignored a survey that shows the vast majority of users here completely disagree with you on every single thing related to this topic. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
    • The poll on the image filter says nothing of the sort. I stood for the image filter because it was not about nudity, because it was not about forcing Ottava Rima's parochial view of good and bad images down everyone's throat.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
      • "The poll on the image filter says nothing of the sort" The poll was very clear, and your statements are akin to claiming that the sky is red. Your denial of what is really obvious is frightening. Your rhetoric on the matter is also incredibly incivil, inappropriate, and shows that you are not participating here for the good of the project. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• While I generally support the use of subcategorization to "hide" offensive content, as a concession to easily-offended users, I don't think the proposed addition adequately addresses nude content that isn't offensive to most people, or offensive content that doesn't include nudity (for example, we probably wouldn't want to put a graphic illustration of a dismembered Obama by a notable artist in Category:Barack Obama). Just to give one example, it makes no sense at all to put File:La nascita di Venere (Botticelli).jpg in Category:Nude Renaissance paintings of Venus rather than Category:Renaissance paintings of Venus. In short, this proposal is on the wrong page - it should be on Commons talk:Categories. Dcoetzee (talk) 03:15, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Since "nudes" are a common form of separating out types of artistic subjects in Art History, why wouldn't we have a separate category for nudes of Venus? Ottava Rima (talk) 04:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

I support the idea in general, but the proposed wording is way too verbose (and doesn't account for non-surprising nudity like classical sculptures). How about just:

Nude images should generally be kept in categories where they won't surprise the user. For example, a photograph of a woman masturbating with a cucumber should be put in Category:Sexual penetrative use of cucumbers rather than Category:Cucumbers.

Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 05:03, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Better than the original proposal, thanks. –Be..anyone (talk) 06:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

As I already mentioned above, the issue being addressed here is offensiveness, not nudity, making this proposal both too narrow and too broad. Many nude images are simply not offensive to most people (for example, consider File:Fotothek df roe-neg 0006757 005 Ein Kleinkind wird einer Licht- oder Wärmebestra.jpg, shown right). This image is in Category:Photographs by Roger and Renate Rössing from 1954. Should it be in Category:Photographs by Roger and Renate Rössing from 1954 including nudity? This is a textbook case of over-the-top overcategorization. Additionally, many non-nude images are widely considered offensive or at least shocking. This is why I think if there is to be a policy about subcategorization, it should be at Commons talk:Categories, not here. Of course a better long-term solution to the whole thing is users choosing what they want filtered, rather than engaging in deliberate overcategorization, but that doesn't exist yet which is why I would (temporarily) support a more targeted proposal. Dcoetzee (talk) 07:52, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Since offensiveness is often related to nudity, I think it's appropriate for us to give some guidance here. I'm not trying to create any policies. I'm just trying to give people some guidance on how to categorize nude images (since this issue seems to come up a lot). And I'm totally in agreement with your example. I don't think any reasonable person would find such an image to be shocking, so there's no reason to hide it in a subcategory. That's the reason I specifically used the criteria of surprise, not nudity by itself. My proposal doesn't say that all nude images should be in subcategories. It says they should be in subcategories if they are surprising otherwise. Whether or not there should be a policy about categorizing offensive images in general is another issue in my opinion. I just want to add some common sense guidance here in cases where the inclusion of nude images in a category is surprising or offensive. Kaldari (talk) 08:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Dcoetzee is incorrect. It is not about "offensiveness". It is about lying and misleading. Category labels should conform to people's expectations. This is how libraries sort items. You would not have, say, a book about a murderer in a section for butchering even though someone based on the same logic of putting a woman using a toothbrush as a sexual aid in that category would put it as such. Talking about filtering is off base and off topic in this discussion. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

A library book can only be in one category, so it's natural to put it in the most important or relevant one. An image can be in many categories, and so less prominent elements are frequently and usefully used to categorize them. For example, File:Mary of Modena by William Wissig.png is in Category:1680s fashion, a useful category, although the primary subject is of course Mary of Modena. An image that prominently features toothbrushes can accurately be categorized under Category:Toothbrushes (unlike your "butcher" example), even though the toothbrush may not be the main focus in the scene. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

"A library book can only be in one category" I don't think you understand how the card catalog system worked or what "keywords" are. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

True enough, I know nothing about those. I've struck the misinformed comment, but the rest stands. Dcoetzee (talk) 04:53, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

 Comment - this is much, much better than my original proposal - thanks! I think further discussion should take that as a starting point (eg I'd add my footnote to the Board resolution). Unfortunately, since the objections are almost entirely independent of the wording, this big improvement may not make much difference. Rd232 (talk) 08:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• And who chooses what's surprising? You, Kaldari? The community (which is very mixed on commons)? Administrators? The reader? And how? Based on a majority vote? I see lots of long discussions about "Will this image be considered surprising?". Consider a prudish user never heard of Michelangelo and the work created by him, the David. Now snapped a phrase and entered it to Commons. *Surprising*
• Generally, of course, categorization should make sense. E.g. categorizing a photo focused on naked woman, holding a very little toy, the image should not be categorized to the specific toy category, instead the photo should be in category:naked women with toys or similar. But this is common sense for me. Just a question of good categorization with no need for an extra policy. Maybe a small addition (one sentence) to Commons:Categories.

To conclude, splitting Category:Michelangelo's David into Category:Michelangelo's David with surprising elements is not worth the effort and just wrong. -- RE rillke questions? 10:13, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Why does everyone think this has something to do with a policy? Commons:Nudity is a guideline, i.e. it offers guidance, i.e. suggestions. The argument that we can't offer any advice that is subjective is ridiculous. It's just a guideline. If people create absurd categories, you're free to ignore whatever is written here and delete the category. The act of categorizing images is usually subjective anyway. And regarding the lack of definition, Commons:Nudity already uses the terms "shock value" and "shocking", which aren't defined. How about I change "surprising" to "shocking"? Is that any better? At least then we're consistent. Kaldari (talk) 10:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The reason for this is that we have a lot of guidelines that are treated like policies when it comes to disputes. And I fear not everyone will agree with me that Category:Michelangelo's David with surprising elements or similar is absurd. I believe there will be people arguing with me about, if I would delete such a category, if something is guiding to create such categories. -- RE rillke questions? 10:43, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The community can evolve more detailed guidance on what constitutes "surprising" in categorisation generally, through the usual consensus means. If we had Commons:Category structure as a guideline, then this would be the place to elaborate guidance on this. The cucumber/toothbrush examples that have caused the most recent debate would easily be covered by

Categories named for objects should focus on the object itself. Uses of the object should be placed into one or more subcategories.

Rd232 (talk) 12:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

For File:Felicia_Fox_2.jpg mentioned in Erotic image with a Muppet I've simply removed the nonsense Category:Benches after checking its sub-categories. This image is actually (my POV) spam and no nudity or porn with numerous more or less fitting categories remaining. Revert me if you must... ;-) –Be..anyone (talk) 15:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

...but Category:Benches is actually an example of following my proposal already, since it has Category:People on benches. Rd232 (talk) 15:17, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, with no remaining category I'd have used that, but while everybody here sees what is surprising nudity (or not) I tend to see what is spam (or not): This image of an alleged porn-star already is in lots of categories, it doesn't need any benches — the focus of the image is anyway not the bench. –Be..anyone (talk) 15:26, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Infrogmation added Category:People on benches, so now you have a real example again, i.e., I consider that category as inappropriate, and the category zoo for this image as spam. –Be..anyone (talk) 17:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I hadn't realized I was treading into a mine field! I've read the discussion twice and have to say I'm rather at a loss as to understand what is "inappropriate" -- the photo shows a person on a bench, does it not? A person on a bench does not stop being a person on a bench, even if she has also worked in pornographic films. Perhaps there is some implication that has not been clearly stated? Care to take another stab at explaining what the problem is? Thanks. -- Infrogmation (talk) 21:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, why is this being discussed in Nudity? Has nudity been so grossly misunderstood as to somehow include "skimpy outfits or clothing that some people might consider sexy"? Infrogmation (talk) 21:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

She is effectively topless; the only thing covering her nipples is her hair, and her areola are clearly visible.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:40, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not really a mine-field, somebody mentioned this example in the "erotic muppet" village pump thread. It also isn't nude as far as I'm concerned, but I fear it's spam or at least not really about benches with ot without people. And more interesting than the Solstice cyclists for the purpose of this discussion. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

 Comment -Generally Kaldari's proposal is better.

• The wording needs to be more focussed on Nudity and not Sexual acts occurring while nude. The bananas, toothbrush and cucumber example needs to be changed into something more borderline. An image (not-uploaded) 'Girls reading Harry Potter on French naturist beach' which is an obvious candidate for Cat:Nude Adolescent girls reading- and not Cat:Harry Potter or Cat:Reading-- which takes away the focus on Sexual Acts.
• Commons:Nudity as a page need serious work. One image displaying - a couple of clothed amateur photographers- who demonstrate no appreciation for lighting, focal length or composition. Really. A stub with no content, if it is a policy where is the section called ==Policy==. When you have read it, what do you then know that helps you upload or police a file? Details of the category-tree we are discussing? Nowhere? Even a synopsis of the comments on the talk page would make it more useful. It could be said I was overly astonished at its contents!
• The Principle of least astonishment link needs to be disamb'ed, as it way off focus to our discussion.--ClemRutter (talk) 12:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Some test cases

I would be genuinely interested on how people see this all applying to, for example, File:Animal locomotion. Plate 127 (Boston Public Library).jpg (a 19th century motion study that shows an unclothed man), File:Espana1930majadesnuda10ptsscott399.jpg (postage stamp of Goya's "Naked Maja"), File:Solstice Cyclist 1995.jpg (mine: shot of bicyclist at Fremont Solstice parade makes it clear the man's genitalia are exposed, but you can't see them), and File:Fremont Solstice Parade 2010 - 156.jpg (slightly more explicit than the preceding, similar subject, female). I'd be glad to see another half dozen test cases raising different issues. Because any effort to discuss this in the abstract is likely to lead to talking at cross purposes. Any meaningful guidance that can be applied consistently is going to require that we have a set of cases like this to indicate what does and does not need special handling. - Jmabel ! talk 17:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

FWIW I see no problem at all with these images and their categories. It could be more interesting if the nekkid cyclists are mixed with other cyclists.  IOW, the solstice cyclists already are a special category, and it's not contrived like nude or partially nude people with electric toothbrushes. –Be..anyone (talk) 19:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the categorization of all of those files seems fine. For example, the last file is placed in Category:Nude women with sunglasses rather than Category:Sunglasses, which is helpful. I don't object to it also being in Category:Solstice Cyclists in 2010 as people should expect some nudity there, i.e. it is not surprising. The main problem is when we have actual porn in run-of-the-mill categories, sometimes even dominating such categories. This is embarrassing to Commons, in my opinion, as it makes it hard for people to take seriously that we are supposed to be an educational resource, and not just a random archive of files. Kaldari (talk) 20:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

How about several images in Category:String instruments in art, most notably File:Anders Zorn - Ateljéidyll.jpg and File:French-postcard-no-series Two-women Pseudo-classical kithara.jpg? File:Sauna Jen 3.jpg in Category:People with snow (is nudity in Category:Saunas in Jesenice unsurprising?). File:1888 Gymnastics as Physical Education in Schools.jpg (would it change if those were boys? are some of them boys?)? --Kramer Associates (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there are degrees. So "...in art" gives you a domain where nudity is more acceptable; but it's still somewhat surprising to find it in a category on string instruments. The images in Category:Saunas in Jesenice are miscategorised - you can barely see the structure which is supposed to be the subject of the category. Should be in a category with "people having a sauna" or something. "Category:People with snow" is somewhat surprising to have nudity in it, and a nudity subcategory of that would probably find plenty of content fairly quickly (it's an interesting juxtaposition in a way that somebody getting topless on a beach isn't). Rd232 (talk) 23:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I would never find nudity in an "art" category surprising. Same for saunas. The non-sexual child nudity has already been discussed (it doesn't seem to be a significant issue as long as it is clearly non-sexual). The Category:People with snow example is a good test case. My personal opinion is that the File:Sauna Jen 3.jpg file is probably OK there as it isn't focused on the nudity or any sexual aspects, it's just a photo of people leaving a sauna in the winter. I could imagine it being useful to illustrate an article on Naturism in Scandinavia or something. I find files like File:Felicia Fox 2.jpg much more surprising there. It's just porn and has virtually nothing to do with how people interact with snow. The only thing it was ever meant to illustrate was Felicia Fox's crotch (to make money, not to illustrate anatomy). Everything else in that photo is incidental. Kaldari (talk) 23:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that "sauna" is a noun, and Category:Saunas is part of Category:Bathing structures and Category:Architectural elements. People in saunas is distinct. It's bad categorisation to pretend that people are architechtural elements; every "people in saunas" image should be in the Category:People in saunas tree, not in the main Saunas tree. That would fairly effectively preclude surprise, by being accurate (and useful). Rd232 (talk) 23:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

You're probably right, although I would consider accurate categorization of nude images to be a separate (but related) issue from "surprising" categorization of nude images. There is also the issue of category "spam", i.e. where porn (or other commercially-related images) are included in as many categories as possible even if only barely related. Kaldari (talk) 23:38, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

"I would never find nudity in an "art" category surprising. " I find that unbelievable. I've taken many art history classes and nude images anywhere are very rare, especially depending on the time period and style. Also, classes on the subject tend to warn people about nudity and art classes in which you learn art tend to warn people if they will have nude models. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In terms of a class with nude models (who are actual, present human beings), perhaps. But the art produced? Have you ever heard of an art museum warning that some of the pictures in the collection are nudes? Is anyone warned away from the sculptural nudes found on public display in many European, American, and doubtless some other, cities? I've heard of museums having warnings about highly sexualized imagery (Mapplethorpe, for example, or Carolee Schneemann) or material that significant numbers of people have found disturbing (Henry Darger, for example) but not for mere nudity. I'm unaware of any major museum in the world that separates nudes in art from other work, though there could be one I don't know. Again, I do think there is some imagery that deserves to be separated off, but it's because it is highly sexual, or portrays great violence, or other similar criteria, not because someone happens not to be wearing clothes. I do think the Felicia Fox example given above probably does not belong in a general category about people with snow, because it is pretty obviously intended as pornographic, and that is a surprising thing to find in a presumably innocuous category. - Jmabel ! talk 04:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

"warning that some of the pictures in the collection are nudes?" Yes, I have. Many art museums in the US have tours with children ranging in various ages, and they warn before hand what kind of content can be seen. Also, many periods and styles lack nudes in general. For instance, you are likely to find nudes in a Pre-Raphaelite exhibit but probably not a Nazarene exhibit, even though they are closely related. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:24, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

 Oppose This sounds ridiculous. There will always be surprising images somewhere and it would look really stupid to have extra categories like Category:Nude or partially nude depictions of Muhammad with electric toothbrushes with subcategories Category:Depictions of Muhammad with electric toothbrushes, Category:Nude or partially nude depictions of people with electric toothbrushes and Category:Nude or partially nude depictions of Muhammad with toothbrushes. Due to COM:NOTCENSORED, images which may look disgusting to some people have to be stored here. Categorising images based on whether they may be seen as disgusting (is a picture of an adult woman without burqa disgusting?) would create too many, too messy and too surprising categories. There are already many categories which look really silly (Category:Color images, anyone?) and we really don't need more of them. If you don't want to see any unwanted pictures, you could write your own script which automatically hides images if they appear in Category:Nude or partially nude people with electric toothbrushes, Category:Depictions of Muhammad or any subcategories to those categories. I suspect that this is exactly what the proposed image filter will do. --Stefan4 (talk) 21:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Surprise is the motor for knowledge and creativity. The principal of least astonishment may work for articles in a way that you wont find a pear in an apple article. But not in the way that you wouldn't find a green and red apple inside the apple article. This nudity nonsense only leads brings us nowhere and calling anything pornography is the devil in the detail. I'm somehow sick to follow up this aggressive discussions that are meant to implement value judgment based on personal preferences. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 00:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment - Making changes to search results

• Commons:Requests for comment/improving search

Please see discussion at Commons:Requests for comment/improving search. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 05:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Photos to illustrate the guideline?

On the one hand they were there for some time now, on the other hand I am not entirely sure about photos in a guideline in general. Here are the points given by the reverters:

• removing pictures; irrelevant to the guidelines & unprofessional on an official page (Lx 121)
• an image is worth a thousand words (Tm)

I can see the validity of both arguments while I disagree with irrelevant in the first one and the second one needs the addition of the crucial caption. Please find a solution. Thank you. -- RE rillke questions? 19:15, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Strongly agree that this edit war is highly inappropriate. Matters of contention should be discussed here on the talk page. (I lean towards keeping the image, as it reenforces key points in a graphic and lighthearted way, but am open to persuasion if someone wishes to put forth an explanation as to why the page would be improved by the removal of the image.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 20:21, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree; a little bit of lightheartedness is not bad, and can reenforce the point.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I thought the "drop your pants" images were quite funny and a good way to get the message across. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

How long have those pictures been seen on that page? Did Lx try to find consens on the dicussion page? --Yikrazuul (talk) 15:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment The images were removed by Lx 121 who is not the same as LX. Yikrazuul's comment suggests that he might have mixed up the users.

Personally, I don't see any problem with having the images here, but it would not matter much if they were removed. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:31, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• What about moving them into an own section at the bottom of the page (The guideline in images or To conclude the guideline or The guideline in short)? When I first translated this page to de, I was also confused by the two photos and thought it is unprofessional and not required. But when sometimes working on Special:NewFiles, I think they show a very valid point. -- RE rillke questions? 21:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• IMO they are good images to illustrate the philosophy of the guideline about the kind of files that is needed, but i suggest to move them to Commons:Nudity#New_uploads section. --Yoggysot (talk) 22:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

images used on guidelines should illustrate or instruct the contents of the text; this pictues does NEITHER; it is merely cute & funny & emphasizes the "nopenis" viewpoint. the caption is particularly unprofessional, & does not reflect anything stated in the actual text of the guideline.

if we allow this standard of childishness on a "serious" community guidline in this case, then we allow the same "standard" of irrelevance & nnpov "jokes" on all guidelines. think about where that takes us, on some of the other contentious/controversial policies...

(& for the record neither the image, NOR the accompanying caption, were a part of this guideline when it was approved by the community, nor was there any comparable illustration included)

Lx 121 (talk) 01:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not childish, it's irreverent. A little bit of irreverence can help lighten the mood around an otherwise contentious topic. Powers (talk) 01:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

relevance standard

just to be perfectly clear, i do not object to the use of illustration on guideline & policy pages; i object to the inclusion of irrelevant images.

this photo does not illustrate anything in the text:

it does not show a useful vs non-useful upload.

it does not show "educational use"

it does not illustrate any (non-existent) commons policy on "quantity limits"

it's a jokey, dumb photo + caption, which serves the "nopenis" pov; which has NEVER been approved as a standard by community concensus.

& as a final point, the caption DOES NOT reflect the contents of the guideline text.

there is not, nor has there ever been, any approved entry in the guideline "commons does not need you to drop your pants"; the inclusion of the line is yet another case of "nopenis" creep...

Lx 121 (talk) 01:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we have consensus on the issue expressed in that photo. It certainly illustrates a non-useful upload, and it matches the basic concept in "New uploads". There's arguments about how much we need a new well-lit well-framed in focus shot of genitalia, but there seems to be certain uploaders who just want to show off their junk, and we don't need to them to do what's illustrated in the photos.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)