Tim's post is excellent. However there is a viewpoint on this issue that is important to me personally that I feel is not well represented by his spectrum.
To the extent that Tim's spectrum does represent me, I am probably moderate. I recognize that some people (e.g. the conservatives) find certain content undesirable and I would gladly give them the tools to self-filter that content if they wished. Since conservatives are a major segment of the population, I also think it is pragmatic for public relations reasons to avoid collecting large numbers of redundant and/or unused images that have the potential to offend such people. However, I also see the issue from another frame that is not part of Tim's spectrum. Sexual photographs, especially those of easily recognized people, have the potential to exploit or embarrass the people in them. I place a high value on not doing harm to the models pictured. This is essentially a consent issue. If the model is a well-known porn star and wants to be shown nude to the world, then there is no problem. However, many of the sexual images we receive depict non-notable individuals who appear to be engaged in private conduct. If the uploader is being honest and responsible, then this may be fine too. However, if the uploader is malicious, then the subject may have no idea how their image is being used. Even if the person pictured consented to having the photographs made, they may still be horrified at the idea that their image would be used in an encyclopedia seen by millions. At present, our controls regarding the publication of a person image are often very lax. With regards to "self-made" images, we often take a lot of things on faith, and personally I see that as irresponsible. In a sense, this way of looking at things is very similar to the issue of biographies of living persons. For a long time we treated those articles more or less the same as all other articles. However, eventually we came to accept that the potential to do harm to living persons was a special concern which warranted special safeguards, especially in the case of negative or private information. I would say that publishing photos of living persons in potentially embarrassing or exploitative situations should be another area where we should show special concern for the potential harm, and require a stronger justification for inclusion and use than typical content. (Sexual images are an easy example of a place where harm might be done, but I'd say using identifiable photos of non-notable people should be done cautiously in any situation where there is potential for embarrassment or other harm.) Obviously, from this point of view, I consider recent photos of living people to be rather different from illustrations or artwork, which would require no special treatment. Much of the discussion has focused on the potential to harm (or at least offend) the viewer of an image, but I think we should not forget the potential to harm the people in the images. -Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
