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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: fuck you wikipedia
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I have recently had a bit of time on my hands so have been getting into writing wikipedia pages. As you do. I've quite enjoyed the process, the feeling of working as a team and even the largely pointless discussions that go on behind the scenes.
I then read this - for those who don't really want to, it is about a guy who was jailed for possession of child abuse images. According to wikipediocracy (a site critical of wikipedia) this guy was banned from editing the English wikipedia but continued to edit other wiki sites.
Because, you see, there are a number of project run by the people behind wikipedia - the grandly titled Wikimedia Foundation - which includes a site called the Commons, which hosts a large number of open source images, many of which are in use on the main wikipedia.
Anyway, this guy was happily continuing to upload dubious images to the Commons despite being banned on wikipedia - and apparently in full knowledge of the Commons administrators.
Well, ok, maybe this doesn't really matter I though. Maybe these images are not really of anything serious.
How wrong I was. The Commons is full of pornography, I learned yesterday, which is easily found by anyone, even those who are not looking for it. Well, ok, I suppose, the internet is also full of it, given the way that community discussions work on wikipedia I guess it is hard to get consensus to remove it.
But it does have some serious implications for those of us who (perhaps naively) assumed that Wikipedia was an Encyclopedia and whilst there may be pages that discussed difficult subjects, the images were relevant to serious scholarly discussion of that and not just a place to upload porn.
And then I discovered that there are even categories on the Commons of children engaged in sexual acts. No I didn't click on the link to see what images the category included, I didn't want to have to explain myself to the local police. I don't suggest you look for them either, but it appears that they do exist a couple of links beyond more benign categories.
I'm sorry, but that's blown my mind. wtf wikipedia?
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Hostly furry hat on
Just making this absolutely clear. Anyone linking porn, much less child porn, will face not only my wrath, but that of the Admins too.
Tread carefully.
Hostly furry hat off
DT
HH
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
I haven't spent a lot of time surfing the Commons, except when I get directed there in search of an image.
What's the context for all this uploading of pornography? Is it done ostensibly in the name of research or archiving? Or does it just seem that people are using it to house images for their own sexual enjoyment?
Not that that really matters if we're talking about harmful and/or illegal material, I'm just kind of curious about why this would be happening.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This might be helpful for this discussion.
Hmm. So they don't want low quality images of genitalia. But high quality images are ok?
I don't know about this. Pretty much most of the things we use on t'internet seem to be based in California - Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al. And the people who run them have a very high view of freedom of speech. Thus they are disinclined to make value judgements about the stuff they carry on their sites.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
Posts: 257 | From: In bed. Mostly. When I can get away with it. | Registered: Dec 2015
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This might be helpful for this discussion.
Hmm. So they don't want low quality images of genitalia. But high quality images are ok?
They quite explicitly say, under Nudity, that they want to have images showing the full range of human genitalia, because it has an educational purpose.
Such images can also, of course, be used for pervy purposes (as have human anatomy textbooks ever since teenage boys have managed to get their hands on them).
If you are a paediatrician-in-training, I imagine one of the many things you do is look at a whole bunch of pictures of children's genitals (normal development, abnormal development because of reason X, area affected by illness Y, and so on.) If you are a paedophile, perhaps you get excited by the same pictures.
All nudity can be used as porn but it doesn't follow that all nudity is porn.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Bibaculus: Hmm. So they don't want low quality images of genitalia. But high quality images are ok?
They have articles about genitalia, and don't want to be too prude to show pictures of them. But they don't want everyone to post their dick pictures either. So they happen to have a couple of photos with professional quality and set this as the standard, giving them an excuse to remove others.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
So let me get this straight. There's a big organization; one part has banned someone, another part hasn't, and you're mad at the part that's banned the guy.
By your logic, I should be pissed off at the National Endowment for the Humanities because of actions of the US Military in Syria and Iraq because they're both parts of the US government.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I was born at night, but I wasn't born last night.
I know the difference between knob pics and pornography. If you think the images on the Commons are just no-problem pictures you'd find in a school textbook, then frankly you've not spent any time there recently.
I don't know the answer as to why the Commons contains so much porn. Part of the answer may be due to unintended consequences of wikipedia being offered to many developing countries as free internet, which has led, predictably, to millions of new internet users finding ways to use it to access porn and other things. Part of it is due to the governance which is very largely "by the crowd", which means via self-appointed administrators on the Commons. Of these, a small vocal number resist any notion of deleting images.
But the biggest part is a lack of backbone by the WMF in general and Jimbo Wales in particular. In fact the WMF is a very small organisation which holds all the levers and can override any community decision made on wikipedia and related sites.
It is only very recently that the WMF took on the responsibility for child protection on their sites away from the community, which was in lock-down as to what to do about it.
But they are still in denial. Wales on occasion insists that he is some kind of constitutional monarch, some kind of Hobbsian Leviathan who is able to use his scariness to bully the community into doing the right thing. But on this, as on other issues, he is strangely apologetic for the darkest corners of wikipedia which could actually get people into legal trouble for looking at (even in a free demcracy like the UK or the USA).
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
Like mr cheesy, I know the difference between educational material and porn. In fact, in a previous job I worked for a law enforcement agency which dealt with this. Camara angles and the like were important. People would try to claim that child porn was legitimate naturist material. This was in a pre-internet era, before the explosion of such things.
Just this morning I had in my twitter feed, retweeted by someone I follow but don't know, an image which concerned me. I looked at the profile of the original poster. He claimed to be a 14 year old boy. He had posted pictures of his penis and anus, asked people to DM him and add him on snapchat. I reported this to twitter, and hopefully they will do something. A quick look at those following the 14 year old boy (if he is) seemed to suggest a number of under age, or claiming to be under age, people posting their genitalia, but I didn't (obviously) click on any of the links.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
Posts: 257 | From: In bed. Mostly. When I can get away with it. | Registered: Dec 2015
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