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Horribly misguided and a mark of shame

At the risk of re-hashing what has been said a hundred times in the archives and above:

This policy is horribly misguided and a mark of shame upon Wikipedia.

The combination of vagueness and undue restrictions makes the policy a disaster and a slap in the face of freedom of speech and opinion. It further risks fueling the child-porn/paedophile hysteria that has spread for the last few one or two decades, and which is often used to push dubious political agendas (including demands for disproportionate restrictions or surveillance of the Internet, no matter the side-effects).

A reasonable policy would have punished attempts at solicitations under clearly defined circumstances---or preferably solicitation (of a sexual nature) in general and without specific reference to children. In particular, vague or ambiguous words like ``inappropriate or ``children (depending on context and speaker, this could be pre-puberty people = real children, people younger than 18 years of age, or refer to some other semi-arbitrary limit) would have avoided.

It could additionally enable blocking for violations of policy (notably verifiability and NPOV) with lower hurdles than for other areas.

It would absolutely not ban paedophiles based on opinion or preference, but merely on acts. I note, apart from freedom of opinion, that there may be instances when a paedophile could have a legitimate reason to mention his paedophilia in talk-page discussions---just like Democrats, Republicans, the mentally ill, fishermen, whatnot, could. Very obviously, preferences stated outside of Wikipedia should have no influence whatsoever on a user's status within Wikipedia---only acts within Wikipedia should matter. (With the one reservation that a well-behaved but infamous-in-the-real-world user could be asked to use an anonymous account to protect the reputation of Wikipedia and to avoid unnecessary distractions among the editors. Consider a re-incarnated Hitler making high-quality edits to the article on vegetarianism and staying clear of the articles relating to Jews and Marxists.) Michael Eriksson (talk) 20:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Very noble, but Wikipedia is not an exercise in free speech. Johnuniq (talk) 04:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be a template at the top of the talk page explaining that Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech. People are persistently misunderstanding this.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia is also not censored. Indeed, in my reading of the respective sections of that page, not censored appears to be far more relevant than not free speech.Michael Eriksson (talk) 17:25, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Zombie Hitler may well be secretly editing right now, as may paedophiles who have not identified themselves as such here or are not engaging in pro-paedophilia advocacy. In the cases that I have seen, users have been blocked based on their actions here, not on any off-wiki identification or self-identification as a paedophile. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
If the actions are better than the words, then that is good. It does, however, not justify the words. (This both as a matter of principle and with a pragmatic eye on the risk of future actions taking a worse turn.)Michael Eriksson (talk) 17:25, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Michael, it's a reaction to the hysteria, and to people who would pretend to be openly declared pedophiles just to smear Wikipedia's reputation. Whatever mark of shame this is, it's less of one than a possible feature on "Dateline:Scare Old People Edition" about "all the self-declared pedos" that edit Wikipedia. Gigs (talk) 03:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that it doesn't protect children. The community could come up with a damn better child protection policy other than "pedos can't admit to being pedos". It logically doesn't make sense. Someone above mentioned that Wikipedia is bound by Florida Law, which is humorous, because IRL sex offenders must be publicly registered.
The second problem is that "pedophile," "inappropriate" and "adult-child relationships" are all undefined. The argument "complaining about it here is useless" is perfectly valid, but trying to defend this policy is nonsensical. Swarm X 02:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
In my reading, this is policy is not about protecting Wikipedia's reputation, but about protecting children. While we all (I hope) agree that the latter is a noble cause, it does not follow that any suggested means of doing so is automatically valid.Michael Eriksson (talk)
It's about protecting Wikipedia's reputation and continued existence. It has very little to do with protecting children. Gigs (talk) 20:34, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
If that is so, then it should be clearly reflected in the policy it self.Michael Eriksson (talk) 11:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree with the author of this section. This policy is an obvious instrument of pure political censorship and manipulation of what are supposed to be fact based NPOV articles. 129.240.68.124 (talk) 04:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Template suggestion - User current age

Given the importance of child protection issues - and the problems that some child editors can cause - would it not be wise to modify the code of the userbox template {{User current age}} so that it refuses to display any age under 18? --Simple Bob a.k.a. The Spaminator (Talk) 10:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Ditto any similar templates in Category:Age and maturity user templates. --Simple Bob a.k.a. The Spaminator (Talk) 10:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
The English language Wikipedia, and Wikipedia as a whole, is read in many different countries. A person under 18 is considered to be a minor in many countries, but it is hard to give general advice. Other sites such as YouTube and Facebook have similar issues.[1] Persons under 18 are not banned from editing Wikipedia, but should probably not give their age online.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 11:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
What difference would this make - any age not displayed would still be visible in the source? Also, how would prohibiting editors under $age from giving their age help Wikipedia or the editors - what problem is this trying to solve? The only problems I'm aware of with child editors relate to their lack of maturity, and this will be entirely unaffected by whether they disclose their age or not. Thryduulf (talk) 12:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Signing up for a Wikipedia user account is not (IANAL) a legally binding contract. Where this is the case, eg at YouTube, the Terms of Service state: "You affirm that you are either more than 18 years of age, or an emancipated minor, or possess legal parental or guardian consent, and are fully able and competent to enter into the terms, conditions, obligations, affirmations, representations, and warranties set forth in these Terms of Service, and to abide by and comply with these Terms of Service. In any case, you affirm that you are over the age of 13, as the Service is not intended for children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use the Service. There are lots of other great web sites for you. Talk to your parents about what sites are appropriate for you."[2] A Wikipedian's age would become an issue in a request for adminship, but beyond that, there are apparently no age limits.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
If a user is editorially mature enough, then I don't see how their age is relevant to adminship, we certainly have admins under 18 (or had, it's been a few years since I last heard anything about admin ages or spent any significant time at RfA). I don't even think it would be relevant for arbitratorship (although I don't think it likely anyone under about 16 would have the necessary life experience to be elected by the community, but I could be wrong). There is probably a lower age limit (legally) for checkuser and/or oversight permissions but whether that would be 13, 16, 18, 21 or any other figure I don't know. Thryduulf (talk) 13:30, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Admins, checkusers and oversighters may be asked to review material with sexual content, so this has been an issue in the past. Beyond that, maturity is the main requirement for editing privileges.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 14:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
How is being asked to review material that has "sexual content" (whatever that is taken to mean) different from non-administrators seeing the same material (e.g. Teletubbies could be vandalised to show hard-core pornography and we have no way of knowing who the first editor to spot it will be) which is covered adequately by WP:NOTCENSORED? If any administrator is asked to review anything they are not comfortable with for whatever reason (e.g. because it is not legal in their jurisdiction) then they do not have to review it.
I was thinking in terms of checkusers and oversighters having access to personal information, which after a bit of investigation turns out is covered by the wmf:Access to nonpublic data policy which includes as point 2 a requirement that "proof that [checkusers, stewards, oversighters, etc are] at least 18 and explicitly over the age at which they are capable to act without the consent of their parent in the jurisdiction in which they reside." This policy exists to comply with the wmf:Privacy policy, although that makes no mention of ages. The most recent elections to the arbitration committee included the requirement that nominees be "at least 18 years old and of legal age in their jurisdiction", although I've not found any reference in policy for this restriction. There is no mention of age anywhere regarding adminship that I can find. Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

In my experience, if a person says on their user or talk page that they are under 18 years old, they are usually advised to remove this information. There are no formal age requirements for editing (unless anyone knows differently).--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 15:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I've only seen this in cases where a user claimed to be 13 years old while giving out enough personal information to be able to be tracked down. A 17 year old saying how old he is on his user page is really no problem at all. --Conti|✉ 15:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
It might be best if we did know who was a minor and who wasn't anyway. In the past I have removed disclosures from minor's userpages, but as Conti says, it's usually because they are posting way too much personal information. Gigs (talk) 14:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with (parts of) this policy.

Pacifically the 'or who identify themselves as pedophiles, will be indefinitely blocked' part. It is not their faul they're attracted towards children, so why shouly they be severely punished fo what's not there fault? People should be encouredged to talk about their pedophilia so that they can be helped with this, they should not just have their rights ripped away from then... if anything this is just going to make the person worse and probably encourge them to harm others of if not other, themself. Furthermore, most peodphiles aren't a danger to kids so placing this very dscrimanating rule under 'Child protection' is, rather, annoyingly false. I honestly don't see this as any worse than banning people for being homosexual just encase they happen to be a rapest, or banning people for having gerontophilia.

Quite frankly, I find this policy discusting and a direct contradition to their 'anyone can edit' rule and the one that says that Wikipedians should be treated fairly. Please edit this so that it says that only pedophiles or anyone else for that matter who attempt to molester someone are to be blocked, so that the discrimination is removed. Robo37 (talk) 13:47, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of this policy isn't to protect children or to punish pedophiles, it is to protect the Foundation from liability if an incident occurs. Because, if something happens, then this policy can be pointed to to show that the Foundation does not condone such things. Clearly, there are other obvious method that can be enacted to actually protect children, but protecting children was never the purpose of this policy. In short: I agree with you, but this isn't going to change, since this is a Foundation made policy and not a community made policy. SilverserenC 16:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Robo37, although many of the editors here have recognized mental disorders, Wikipedia is not a discussion forum or group therapy session. We would not encourage necrophiles to talk about their necrophilia, or gerontophiles to talk about their gerontophilia. As for Silver Seren's statement that the aim of this policy is to protect the WMF, that is only their opinion and not the words of the WMF. I assume good faith that a policy entitled "child protection" is intended to protect children, however flawed it may be. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Whatever the title, this policy isn't about protecting children, it's about appeasing those people who believe we should be protecting children but who can never define who children are, what it is they need protecting from, and why (given this it's not possible to determine how they should be protected). The tabloids have led some people to believe that there are paedophiles lurking around every corner and everyewhere on the internet waiting to harm children. This is despite the fact that "paedophiles" and "child abusers" are not synonyms, that children are far more likely to be harmed by someone they know than a stranger, and that the paranoia about it is in most cases (although not all) doing more harm than the vague thing they're paranoid about. The point of the policy is not that paedophiles can't edit, it's just that they can't say they're a paedophile. This is to stop the drama of tabloids jumping up and down yelling about paedophiles editing Wikipedia - even if they only edit articles about 19th century theoretical physics. The dangerous ones are the abusers who are obviously not going to make a big song and dance about wanting to groom kids, but it's apparently ok for them to edit as the tabloid journalists can't see them. Meanwhile those who want to work constructively to write neutral encyclopaedic articles about topics related to child sexuality have to do so under false pretences. Don't get me wrong, protecting children is a good thing, but it can only be done when you know who you are trying to protect from what and why, until such time we might as well be trying to protect Scorpios from rainbow monsters. Thryduulf (talk) 18:17, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
You hit the nail on the head right there. SilverserenC 18:25, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
My comment was only about the intention of the policy and my belief that it is a sincere, although flawed, effort (see my note here for example). Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

This policy is SICK!

So THAT explains why all the pedophilia-related articles in here read like they were written by Chris Hansen, and the actually interesting ones keep being deleted all the time.

Anyone not willing to use Wikipedia for censoring truth and encouraging witch-hunt is banned indefinitely?

What kind of an encyclopedia is this supposed to be?

I just lost so much respect for Wikipedia...

129.240.68.124 (talk) 04:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. This policy isn't actually enforced. It only exists so that pranoid kid-leashers won't stir up the public against Wikipedia, and so that the Wikimedia Foundation's time isn't wasted in lawsuits by the same. As far as I know, no-one has actually ever been banned for declaring that they're attracted to children. If they were, then I agree that that's too bad, but it's an unfortunate and limited side effect of this otherwise useful policy. Cheers, ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 08:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Please do not comment in areas where you have no knowledge. While this section should be removed (with my comment) because it is off topic and fails WP:TALK, I will note that Wikipedia is most definitely not available for use to promote certain kinds of interest, and the defacto policy is the most rigorously applied rule in Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 08:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. Although I have not commented here for a while to prevent circular debates, there have to be some guidelines on this issue. Once again, Wikipedia is not an exercise in free speech.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Johnuniq, please explain how a person believing that a policy is incorrect and a form of censoring, is a violation of WP:TALK and off-topic when posted on the talk page of that very policy? I don't believe that the post could be any more on-topic than it was. That doesn't mean that it may not be wrong, misguided, ..., but removng it for being an imaginary violation of a policy would be totally wrong. If people are not allowed to express their opinion of a policy on the talk page of that policy, then please change our talk page policy to make this clear, and make certain that you have consensus for such a change (you certainly don't have my support for it). Fram (talk) 09:00, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The original poster should note that Sithman is wrong. A lot of people have been banned for violation of this policy. As for the OP's views, well, he has expressed them. I don't think there's much more to be said. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I never said that nobody has been banned under this policy, I just said that that's not really the purpose of this policy. As an aside, I find it frustrating that everyone always point to WP:ANARCHY, when its suggestion that "Wikipedia is not an exercise in free speech" is, when viewed in context, obviously just saying that wikipedia articles are not vehicles for unrestrained free speech, not that somebody's opinions or behavior unrelated to editing is a reason to ban that user. Linking to that policy in these discussions is an absurd thing to do, and will certainly not convince anyone of why this policy is a good idea. Please cut that out. ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 05:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
That's exactly the purpose of this policy, and earlier versions of it may have made this clearer. This policy says if you declare yourself a pedophile, you'll be blocked forever (and I assume banned as well). That's its main reason for existing. Gigs (talk) 13:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Agree. The very first edit in this policy makes its purpose very clear. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Can we remove some of the prohibition against public accusation?

Some time ago I started a thread here criticizing the policy against public accusation or discussion of editors whose actions or edits hinted that they might be pedophiles. [3] I feel like I had a good response at the time, but because this wasn't a community policy, there was no way to make something happen because of it. But there is quite a bit of discussion on Jimbo's page now about the ArbCom e-mails - despite the illusion of secrecy and propriety, it looks like in the long run they will probably end up being just as public as an open discussion. Now people are talking more about greater transparency, more on-wiki discussion. Is it possible that this policy could be changed to reflect this now, by removing the requirement for secrecy, and allowing the charges to be raised, with responsible sourcing to diffs, in venues such as ordinary ANI actions, subject only to the usual policies on civility, outing, etc.? Wnt (talk) 09:36, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

No, a policy that encourages on site discussion of suspected illegal activity of editors is not going to happen. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 10:02, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Clearly no, per the previous discussion, WP:DISRUPT and libel are obvious possibilities in this situation.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:07, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
To be clear, advocating adult-child relationships is not actually illegal activity, so I don't think that objection is valid. And if someone were, say, linking from credit card sites to a phishing site with Cyrillic letters in the name, we'd suspect illegal activity, yet so far as I know it could still be discussed at ANI normally. I still don't see the need for special handling of this particular issue - especially when that special handling is producing an archive of e-mails which we now know is not secure, and which may well end up on Wikileaks someday in its entirety. Wnt (talk) 20:35, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Accusing someone of pro-pedophilia activity - even if said activity is entirely legal - can destroy a person's personal life and career, regardless of whether the accusations are true at all or not. That's why such accusations should not be made in public. --Conti|✉ 21:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
User:Wnt , you say, "advocating adult-child relationships is not actually illegal" - if it isn't it should be. It is not allowed at en Wikipedia. (here) and such actively will result in an infinity restriction from the site as a first minimum response, local users may well want to report such an issue to the local child protection agency also. Off2riorob (talk) 05:05, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, I assumed everyone talking on this page had read the policy page! But if some IDONTLIKEIT people hadn't targeted Phillip Greaves for deletion, I could point you to sources saying that indeed, advocating pedophile relationships isn't illegal. (Note that the Florida motion was about textual obscenity, an entirely different censorship rationale) Which naturally contradicts the statement above that talking about editors breaking the policy is talking about "suspected illegal activity". I still don't understand why people are so resolute about protecting an aspect of the policy which seems to protect pedophiles from being called out publicly on the Wiki. Wnt (talk) 05:37, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
See what I wrote above. --Conti|✉ 05:43, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
We have a policy against egregious personal attacks. I also think that there many sorts of allegations which could be made against someone which would be damaging - at the same time, the muttering of Internet harpies is seldom taken all that seriously. Wnt (talk) 06:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure allegations of equally bad offenses aren't usually allowed, either, and should be dealt with privately. And even here on the internets allegations of pedophilia activities are taken seriously enough to cause damage, whether warranted or not. --Conti|✉ 06:19, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
The last thing a talk page needs is an ongoing discussion about whether User:John Doe is a pedophile. In any case, this would be hard to prove on the basis of Internet posts which could be a hoax, trolling etc. What matters is avoiding WP:DISRUPT, which is why any concerns in this area should be sent to ArbCom.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Recent minor addition

In the opening paragraph, I have added the following phrase: "(i. e. holding or expressing fringe and extremely unacceptable viewpoints such as the idea that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children)." This is to clarify exactly what "advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships" means. I have recently not been interested in pages that are related to this subject matter, but having stumbled upon this page recently, since I have been involved in related discussions many years ago, I felt that this was an important clarification, as certain blocks of users in the past by ArbCom and Jimbo Wales has made it clear that holding such a fringe viewpoint is not acceptable regardless of self-proclamation of being a pedophile or not, per judgment of ArbCom and Jimbo Wales.--A (talk) 07:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

This was trimmed, because "fringe and extremely unacceptable" is subjective and hard to define in general terms. The root of this policy is the userbox wheel war, which concluded that saying "I am a pedophile/support the legalization of pedophilia" is not an acceptable use of project space.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, "fringe" might have been a questionable word, but as for "extremely unacceptable," I think this is something that is more definite and certain. For editors to be banned for expressing such a viewpoint can only be due to the fact that such a viewpoint is "extremely unacceptable." I would also like to correct you in saying that the root of this policy is due to a decision by Jimbo Wales and ArbCom, and is not related to the Pedophilia userbox wheel war. Perhaps clarification could be asked from Jimbo Wales on this, but I think that from comments that he has already made in the past, he has made it clear that such viewpoints are indeed "extremely unacceptable."--A (talk) 07:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
It is a bit off-topic, but in an attempt to dig up some ancient history (since many people seem misinformed about where this policy came from), I think that the earliest users to be blocked on these grounds were Rookiee (see this - also this might be informative of the earlier stance before ArbCom and Jimbo Wales weighed in) and Clayboy (see the block log for User:Clayboy). It is clear what happened: ArbCom saw that things were going the wrong way (in fact, I came to know about the case of Rookiee through the former CorporateSexOffenders website accusing Wikipedia of tolerating pedophiles), and therefore intervened to make things right (without a reference to the earlier Pedophilia userbox wheel war).--A (talk) 08:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
If there is no reason given to suppose that the viewpoint is actually acceptable at all, I shall be adding the word "unacceptable" back in sometime latter.--A (talk) 09:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Saying that it is unacceptable is largely redundant wording.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:47, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Sex Offenders

The policy as written appears to not include actual sex offenders. If it becomes known that a user is a convicted sex offender - that is someone who has been convicted of offences against a person or persons under legal age of consent, should that user be blocked? SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:35, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

One particular case springs to mind here. This was the de facto reason why he was blocked, but there is no formal policy. As with any legal situation, the laws of different countries come into play. For example, if it emerged that a person was convicted in the UK, or Germany, this would have no direct legal force in the USA. Hopefully this situation would not occur often, but because of the likely difficulty in formulating a policy that everyone was agreed on, it may be best to look at the issue on a case by case basis.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
And what if the person is a sex offender for being an 18 year old who had sex with their 16 year old partner? Would that really be something we should care about? SilverserenC 11:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Is there a need to have policies cover every situation? My guess is that anyone who puts "I am a convicted sex offender" on their user page would have a short wikilife, and probably anyone who announces something similar on any page would be blocked as either misguided or a troll. If someone edits with a username that is known to be the real name of a sex offender, they would probably be asked to clarify the situation and advised that continuing under such a name is not possible. However, we can't foresee all possibilities, and if there ever were a case of a person who was convicted because at 18 they had sex with their slightly younger partner, I imagine a strong view in the community would be to ignore the situation, except that people should not discuss such private matters on-wiki, and if they do, we have to wonder about their suitability on other grounds (depending on how the information became known, the question would arise of whether the person is just an attention seeker, or even a troll). Johnuniq (talk) 11:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That would be extraordinarily bad. "Sex offender" is a dangerously culturally-loaded term of wide variance and that has very little to do with protection of children. Hell, I might now be a "sex offender" if I had been "caught": I did take a two week vacation to Disneyworld with my partner of 19 years a bit before Lawrence v. Texas. — Coren (talk) 12:10, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I've just been made aware that I'm using "sex offender" when I mean "child sexual abuser". The legal age of consent does vary from country to country - it ranges from 12 to 20. My thinking is that someone having sex with someone younger than the lowest legal age - 12 - would be seen by most reasonable people as a "child sexual abuser", and if they had been convicted of that, and we were to find out, then both for the protection of our younger users, and for the protection of Wikipedia's reputation, we should have a clear policy that allows us to block them. SilkTork ✔Tea time 14:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

You really need to get that right, as the term "sex offender" covers a very, very, very broad range of activities. Depending on the jurisdiction, a registered sex offender could be guilty of anything from urinating in public to serial rape, and the majority of registered sex offenders are of no risk to anyone. --Carnildo (talk) 21:35, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia should allow for the consideration that society allows for: that people can change. I get that the media likes to put forward this misguided notion that sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated, but it is simply not true. Unless someone is clearly violating policy, they should not be blocked merely due to a past offense.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:28, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe it's not true that most sex offenders can't be rehabilitated, seeing as "sex offender," as mentioned above, is a broad term. But, as research continually shows (and you can find such research in the topic Wikipedia articles or elsewhere online), it is true that most sex offenders who have a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescents, and in some cases early pubescents, cannot be rehabilitated. And even if rehabilitated, that attraction will remain; it's as difficult to change as a sexual orientation. 46.165.208.13 (talk) 23:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
No, this is not the case at all. People can and do control their sexual urges to the point of even lessening those urges. Similar to addiction people will always feel the urge, but that does not mean they will always feel it as strongly nor that they will always give into it. I believe the initial principle of this policy is that someone who strongly identifies as a pedophile is likely to be a very serious problem for the community. That someone performed a horrible act in the past should not, in my opinion, preclude them from contributing here in the present. As long as someone contributes in a respectful and constructive manner I do not believe we should give a damn about that person's past.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
No one at Wikipedia cares about the past of editors. It's the present that counts, and if someone has such poor judgment that they allow it to be known that they have, or once had, an interest in sex with young people, they can no longer help the project. Regarding the above comments: no page on Wikipedia should be used to promote the view that sex offenders can be rehabilitated—it's just not relevant to the project, and is totally unhelpful because, whatever the intention, such talk is a troll magnet. Johnuniq (talk) 01:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
The "view that sex offenders can be rehabilitated" is not inappropriate at all and simply expressing that view is not promoting it, especially in the context of a discussion over whether people should be blocked solely on the basis of a past offense. Blocks should be based on one very basic principle: that someone is creating disruption to the work of this project. A person is not creating disruption simply by having an unsavory past. As I said, someone who presently and strongly identifies as a pedophile is a different creature altogether.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Some people at Wikipedia do care about the past of editors. Suppose an editor uploaded a large number of images of child gymnasts, for example. This not in itself strongly suggestive of a problem, but if it came to light that the editor had been convicted of sexual offences involving children, one might view those uploads differently. On the other hand, I am been made aware of an editor who has a previous conviction which makes him a registered sex offender, but I do not think he poses any harm to the community (it is a case similar to that described by Silver seren). Outside of the issue of pedophilia advocacy, these types of concerns need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. 03:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Pretty much saying what I am thinking. Someone's past only matters if it reflects on that person's actions in the present.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:13, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
The Devil's Advocate, you state, "No, this is not the case at all. People can and do control their sexual urges to the point of even lessening those urges." Eh, no, at least in the case of pedophiles, you are largely mistaken (as most don't and seemingly can't) and I don't know where you are getting your information. Did you even bother to look at the Pedophilia article beyond a skim -- the reliable sources in it, making it explicitly clear that there is no cure for pedophilia? Did you even bother to do a quick scholarly search showing that your belief, at least if you are including those with a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescents in your definition of those who can be rehabilitated, is wrong? You state that it is "Not the case at all," when study after study has shown that child sexual abusers (I'm speaking of those who sexually abuse prepubescents in this case), especially pedophiles, have very high reoffending rates and that their sexual attraction to prepubescents, since "phenomenologically similar to a heterosexual or homosexual sexual orientation," cannot be cured. Yes, as the Pedophilia article states, "there are therapies that can reduce the incidence of a person committing child sexual abuse," but it also states, in its Treatment section, that "the success rate of these therapies has been very low." And while the source backing that latter line is old, there are more recent sources in that section stating the same thing. And many more online; academic sources. Offenders with a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescents not acting on that attraction is rare. Your word does not trump research. If you want to sit here and argue with only your opinion, be my guest. But as for pedophiles editing here, every single one who was clearly a pedophile or advocating some sort of pro-pedophilia POV tried to put a pro-pedophilia spin on the Pedophilia article and its associated articles. Some tried to sexually go after our underage users (at least what would be categorized as underage in America and many other places). And every single one was obviously blocked, by ArbCom and non-ArbCom administrators. Wikipedia's pedophilia problem having been so bad is exactly why WP:CHILDPROTECT was created. And you're advocating to let such individuals in here? I doubt that just because they don't disclose that they are pedophiles, they won't go right to the pedophilia articles and edit those articles in a pro-pedophilia way. Most of the ones that were here didn't disclose that they were pedophiles, but their actions tripped them up. Wikipedia trying to be inclusive in such a way didn't work last time, and I don't believe that this should be a case of "try, try again." 46.165.208.13 (talk) 06:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
46.165.208.13 you could have be a tad more civil about making your point to Devil's Advocate. You don't achieve consensus by abusing people for their statements. Having had a long history of defending the Pedophilia and related articles from admitted and non-admitted pedophiles in my years as a editor, I do not see a need for a formal policy that is based solely on the admission of prior offenses. My reasoning is that admission of such by a person doing completely unrelated editing (like Battleships) is so unlikely and incongruous I would question if the person is psychotic (or a troll) long before I would label them a pedophile. If however their editing showed advocacy or pro-POV, I would think such actions would themselves be the problem, and their criminal history would simply serve to hasten the decision for a block.Legitimus (talk) 13:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't trying to be uncivil, and didn't even perceive the comment to be so, but thanks for catching me on it if it indeed came off that way. Looking over it again, I see how the "Did you even bother" and "If you want to sit here and" lines come off as impolite, and I apologize for any incivility on my part. 46.165.208.13 (talk) 14:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Seriously? Some admin admitted to editing Wikipedia while high on meth a while back. I think he is still an admin. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

A comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rape and Pregnancy

Hi. Will any of you comment on this at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents? I believe that the comment I was responding to in the WP:AFD is a WP:CHILDPROTECT violation. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 05:45, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Never mind. It's been settled. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 07:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Repeal the pedophile protection provisions, part 2

I propose (again) that the following two sentences be removed from this policy:

"Reports of editors engaging in such conduct should be made to the Arbitration Committee for further action, and should not be the subject of community discussion, comment or consensus."
"Comments posted on Wikipedia suggesting that an editor may be a pedophile will be RevDeleted promptly, to avoid issues of privacy and possible libel. You should raise your concerns only by email; questions or accusations directed against a particular editor in project space may result in a block for the editor who posted them."

The reasons haven't changed from what they were before - nobody really wants to block someone who is squawking about an alleged pedophile on Wikipedia while leaving the pedophile allegation itself undiscussed and unacted upon. What has changed is that now we're seeing that is the case, first in the thread above, and recently, in a very public allegation made right on User talk:Jimbo Wales that scrolled right off into the archives with no action being taken about it. And again at [4] (where it really never even belonged) I should add that no action was taken in either direction, not to suppress the allegations and also not to make any decision about whether the person the allegations were about in question had violated this (or any better) policy. The problem is, these sorts of issues are indeed serious and emotional, which is why they should be addressed up front by a vigorous community debate, not punted to a behind-the-scenes committee where, history tells us, nothing ever really happens. I know this is a "policy with legal considerations", but were those considerations based on the premise that we have this policy and don't enforce it either way? I think it's time to send primary authority over these issues back to the normal course of AN/I, using whatever means they can devise to keep tempers and wild allegations more or less in check. Wnt (talk) 21:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there is sufficient maturity for a "vigorous community debate" to be possible or sensible. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Letting AN/I decide on whether a user is enough of a pedophile supporter or not to be blocked must be the worst idea of the century so far. I'm against behind-the-scenes deals as much as the next guy, but this is one of the few topics you just cannot discuss in an open forum without wasting a huge amount of time, creating huge drama and hurt feelings all over the place. --Conti|✉ 22:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
The thing is, in the case I mention, it's already been discussed in an open forum, and absolutely nobody seemed to care. If we're going to have people blogging on Wikipediocracy about it, posting it to Jimbo Wales' talk page and even random places like some deletion discussion about an outing list, why not have people talking about the issue at AN/I in an organized way that (hopefully) impartially considers both sides of the story? Wnt (talk) 03:31, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
So what is an editor supposed to do if they are falsely accused of engaging in pro-pedophilia advocacy? For An Angel (talk) 03:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
The policy states "You should raise your concerns only by email; questions or accusations directed against a particular editor in project space may result in a block for the editor who posted them", which doesn't really answer your question, but someone in that situation should probably contact ARBCOM, lest they themselves run afoul of WP:NPA. Of course, any admin who sees overt accusations should probably block the person making them. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Absolutely not! Public discussion on whether someone is or is not a pedophile is sufficient to ruin people's lives (whether they are or not – the torches-and-pitchfork mobs don't care). That some other places are so lacking in morals and ethics that they don't care is immaterial; we should not do it (and the Foundation will not allow it anyways if only because of the extreme peril of libel). — Coren (talk) 04:05, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Hell no. Basically per Coren; it's tantamount to accusing an academic of plagiarism (except on the moral scale, this is much worse). That's the reason arbcom-l exists. --Rschen7754 04:10, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
So is this officially an indispensable make-believe policy we need to avoid libel considerations, but don't actually enforce? Or are one of you admins weighing in about how perfect this policy is actually going to go and revdel out the places I pointed to above where an editor is being accused, places that have already been in sight of multiple admins for a week, and tell those involved that ArbCom is considering the case? Wnt (talk) 04:16, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
I have no idea what ArbCom is or is not currently considering. But if you can't see the difference between some random allegation on some talk page and a days-long debate on the highest profile noticeboards, then I fear for your sense of perspective. — Coren (talk) 04:24, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
This is a daft and dangerous suggestion. One has only to look at what happened when self-righteous bloggers accused Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile. This type of "bring your own pitchfork" debate is rightly banned on Wikipedia.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Banned but allowed, that is. Well, at this point I'm going to give up on trying to change this make believe policy; I also see no point in trying to persuade anyone to enforce it. Wnt (talk) 06:05, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

About awareness

I accidentally came across this page and I think that its subject justifies better visibility, especially in relation to the instructions to minors. Shouldn't these instructions be more prominently available especially to new editors? Perhaps they are; however, I do not recall having seen something similar. Rentzepopoulos (talk) 12:35, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

As a tangential aside, minors themselves usually get pointed to Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors rather than this page. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 13:25, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I was not aware of that page, which is far better suited for this role (and includes a link here as well). Rentzepopoulos (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Would it be useful to move up the paragraphs "If you are a younger editor..." and "If you are concerned..." so that these are the first things the reader sees? Tom Harrison Talk 21:05, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Seriously concerns

How do you take a seriously concern? Gigs (talk) 15:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Since there have been previous reverts over where to place the adverb in this sentence, it was reworded.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 16:01, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
For what it's worth, Gigs, you're parsing the sentence wrong (which isn't surprising, it's a fairly weird construction that we don't see a lot in English). If this makes it any clearer: it's not [takes [seriously concerns] about] ], it's [ [takes seriously] [concerns about] ]. Which is to say "seriously" should be read as part of the verb "take seriously" rather than as an adverb somehow modifying "concerns". A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Clarification needed on some issues

The first paragraph says:

"Wikipedia regards the safety of children using the site as a key issue. Editors who attempt to use Wikipedia to pursue or facilitate inappropriate adult–child relationships, who advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children), or who identify themselves as pedophiles, will be blocked indefinitely."

Given that this policy is used to block users who did not self-identify as pedophiles on Wikipedia, who were productive editors who never did anything wrong here, it seems to me that either the first paragraph needs to be rewritten to reflect the de-facto blocking policy (i.e. it would need to make clear that if you are a pedophile then no matter how well you behave, you shouldn't edit Wikipedia, and editors are encouraged to report suspected pedophiles to ArbCom), or we need to change the grounds for blocking (suspected) pedophiles back to what the current policy page actually says. Count Iblis (talk)

I know what this proposal is a response to. The policy already makes it clear that the person does not have to self-identify as a pedophile before being blocked; it states "who advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children." So regarding what you propose, I don't see a need for a change to the page. But Alison has been WP:BOLD and tweaked the page a bit. Flyer22 (talk) 19:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Shouldn't the "on or off-wiki" be moved to include all the examples given? Obviously we also block people who self-identify as pedophiles off-wiki, for instance. --Conti|✉ 20:05, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't see how it matters if it is on-wikipedia or off-wikipedia. Identification is identification. Children should be our first priority. I wish there was a way to block such people from even reading Wikipedia at all. One of the largest threats to kids is when they start posting personal info about each other as vandalism, and this is something that happens on Wikipedia every day. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 18:39, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
I believe the parenthetical remark should be removed and the rest remain as it is presently. The terminology is too open to subjective interpretations and prevents editors from objectively pursuing legitimate avenues of discussion regarding this subject. One can certainly decide whether a given statement of such nature is advocacy or not, but it does not mean every statement to that effect is advocacy. Sometimes it could be because there is legitimate disagreement, actual evidence suggesting it in specific cases, or simple ignorance. None of these things should be cause for indefinite blocks.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 21:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
It's a simple fact that off-wiki behavior is taken into account when it comes to this issue, so policy should reflect this. Admins blocking for statements made off-wiki and arbcom, who are the only ones allowed to undo such blocks, deciding not to unblock makes this a de facto policy. --Conti|✉ 23:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
+1. If a pedo is identified, he should be removed from the project. Whether the evidence comes on-wiki or off is quite irrelevant. Tarc (talk) 23:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
And sooner or later we'll also start to remove members of extreme right wing parties from Wikipedia, even if they behave well on-wiki. Wikipediocracy membership will become incompatible with being an editor here too. Eventually, Wikipedia will become the encyclopedia that no one except for a small group of appointed editors can edit. Count Iblis (talk) 00:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Iblis, save your slippery slope argument for someone actually dim enough to be swayed by it. Tarc (talk) 00:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Would Abu Qatada be allowed to edit here if the judge grants him internet acces and he behaves himself well here? Obviously not, given that pedos can't edit here. Count Iblis (talk) 00:21, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Some people are too caught up in their "get the pedos" WP:BATTLE to understand exactly what they are endorsing as well. What it basically establishes is that if you can find some off-wiki comments that can be portrayed as "advocacy" then you can get someone permabanned by any willing admin without explanation or any viable means of appeal. This type of emotionally-driven policy change by brute force of numbers is not appropriate anywhere, least of all on a policy page such as this one. It certainly doesn't encourage neutral editing on actual content related to this subject.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Indeed, and it actually doesn't do much to protect children. The really dangerous people are careful to hide their identity. Then there are people you can call "responsible pedophiles" who have outed themselves but who are able to stay away from children. These people are the ones who are the most vulnerable to be targeted by this policy (and to some degree by society). That leads to social isolation of these people, which in some cases can lead to the very problem we want to prevent. Count Iblis (talk) 00:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
This policy used to be called WP:PEDOPHILIA, which was a more accurate title. I think we can all agree that Wikipedia is an unlikely place for anyone to try meeting children online, so the degree to which it can be said to protect actual children is probably somewhat limited. I think the policy is really dealing with the advocacy of pedophilia on WP. I'm sure some people will disagree, but there is an argument to be made that self-identification as a pedophile is in itself a form of advocacy because it is an attempt to "normalize" pedophilia. If someone is a pedophile but does not identify themselves as a pedophile and does not engage in advocacy of pedohilia, they will not run afoul of this policy and can freely edit here. The picture painted by Count Iblis strikes me as completely unrealistic. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Well, since people are really talking about identification I moved the off-wiki mention to that part, since it is less hazardous. You would still have the potential problem of joe jobs, but we can at least minimize the potential for shenanigans and misrepresentation.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 04:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
"What it basically establishes is that if you can find some off-wiki comments that can be portrayed as "advocacy" then you can get someone permabanned by any willing admin without explanation or any viable means of appeal." Yes, that's precisely how it works right now. I don't agree with it, but as long as it works like that, I prefer our policies to say as such. --Conti|✉ 10:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
If we let the enforcement of this policy become subject to the POV whims of certain editors and admins it will only insure that eventually "ban the pedos" becomes "ban anyone who could appear even slightly sympathetic to pedos in the eyes of x editor", which will basically serve to destroy any chance of this site providing a neutral position on the subject.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 17:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
"ban anyone who could appear even slightly sympathetic to pedos" ? You say that like it'd be a bad thing. Tarc (talk) 18:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
What tarc said. Darkness Shines (talk) 18:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
It would be a horrible thing Tarc, because any number of legitimate positions on these issues can easily be taken as "slightly sympathetic to pedos", with the nature of any block being such that it would be effectively a permanent ban. The current parenthetical already fails to be conducive to constructive content-related discussion and I do not want biased editors such as you and Alison tendentiously altering this policy to suit your own opinions because the end result will be a stifling of legitimate disagreement that will compromise the integrity of article content.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 19:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
  1. Why do you all think that volunteers, who are only possibly trained in writing, should deal with allegedly dangerous individuals?
  2. Will blocking an account that portrays itself as supporting something not accepted by society be a net positive for the project?
  3. If the community assumes that particular editors are intrinsecally bad and aren't here to "provide a positive contribution", why should they assume that ANY editor is here to provide positive contributions?

t. Kord Kord Kakurios (talk) 18:30, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It's also strange that we would ban pedophiles, given the definition we link to. The pedophilia article says: "As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia or paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in persons 16 years of age or older typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest toward prepubescent children (generally age 11 years or younger, though specific diagnosis criteria for the disorder extends the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13).[1][2][3][4] An adolescent who is 16 years of age or older must be at least five years older than the prepubescent child before the attraction can be diagnosed as pedophilia.[1][2]"

So, we're not talking about people who have actually abused children. We should therefore not ban people who have self-identified themselves as pedophiles, at least not under this definition of "pedophile". Count Iblis (talk) 00:07, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I see that DC wrote above that: "If someone is a pedophile but does not identify themselves as a pedophile and does not engage in advocacy of pedohilia, they will not run afoul of this policy and can freely edit here.". So, this means that we have a de-facto don't ask don't tell policy w.r.t. pedophiles. We should make this clear in the test of this policy page. Count Iblis (talk) 00:16, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

A pedophile may or may not have sexually abused a child, that is correct. Pedophilia (the mental disorder) and child sexual abuse (the act) are also distinct, though they overlap and people (as seen in this discussion and as discussed in the Pedophilia article) commonly equate the two. But according to the statistics on these subjects, the majority of people who are diagnosed with pedophilia have sexually abused a prepubescent child. Despite that, it can still be stated that it is not definitively known whether or not most pedophiles sexually abuse children. Some do indeed fight against their urge to do so; see Virtuous Pedophiles, for example. And it is not known whether or not most child sexual abusers are pedophiles (some sources believe that most are; some sources believe that most are not). WP:CHILD PROTECT is not just about pedophiles, however; it's about any adult who has sexually abused a prepubescent child, any adult who has engaged in sexual activity with an underage pubescent or underage postpubescent, and those who advocate such sexual relationships or otherwise express that such sexual relationships do not cause harm to the underage person (except for maybe in the case of those who are close in age, such as a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old). In other words, WP:CHILD PROTECT is also about those who support such sexual relationships, whether pedophiles or not, such as some supporters of age of consent reform; it's also because of this that, in contrast to Delicious carbuncle's view that WP:PEDOPHILIA is the more accurate name for this policy, I believe that WP:CHILD PROTECT is the more accurate name for it. Flyer22 (talk) 00:59, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
That's not all the reasons we ban people for, however. It's enough to suggest a positive (or non-negative) view on the subject, on- or offwiki, now or in the distant past, to get you banned. As long as there's one admin willing to do the block, it'll stick. --Conti|✉ 10:50, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
And when an admin blocks their accounts, they come back, and they probably learn to remain silent and quiet. How do you stop them? The only safe method is to render everyone faceless and ageless on this site, which is partially unresponsible towards people's BLP biographies but more responsible towards editors who are at risk of grooming or threats. Kord Kakurios (talk) 18:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
So you're saying that users who are blocked under this policy might return under a new account? But wouldn't that become obvious when they get involved in discussions like this one after making few edits outside of commenting on this topic? Or if they edit discussions on user pages that are years old and involved other users blocked under similar circumstances? I mean, surely someone would notice that they were an obvious sockpuppet? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:33, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I expressed some opinions, nothing more. Now, i see you're probably telling me that i am not editing much. In fact, i'm mostly a reader of wikipedia, and while i do read every now and then, i find most pages i read to be sufficiently complete or not needing any corrections (i'm not an expert on anything, except maybe knowing some internet culture that probably most teenagers know by now). Kord Kakurios (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Privacy Question: Pictures of Children in General

I have a question that is not directly related to child pornography. Is there a policy that pictures of children are not permitted without consent of their parent or guardian? This came up among other things with regards to a misfeature of Facebook so that was causing people to think that Wikipedia was displaying their own children. We know that pictures in general are not permitted without a Creative Commons license, but that is granted by the photographer, and my question has to do with consent of the parent of the child. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:30, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

If there is a different forum in Wikipedia for this question, please direct me to it.
That probably has to do with File:Happiness.jpg. It is actually commons policy and not en:wp policy. Local laws are usually brought up in regards with consent and then hosting laws in the USA in regards to storage/hosting. The deletion review for the linked image may seem hard to get one's head around but most policy/legal arguments there are sound.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:56, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
No such policy exists nor is it likely to. Historical images alone make it non viable. That said from time to time people uploading pics of kids have been blocked and had their images deleted basically for managing to creep out the wikipedia admin corps. Its not an ideal standard but it works for the most part.Geni (talk) 23:18, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Old Weird Redirect

On the one hand, this is Wikipedia talk: Child protection. On the other hand, Wikipedia talk: Child Protection is a redirect to Wikipedia talk: Child protection proposals. Notice case sensitivity. The redirect is to an old discussion. Should the redirect be changed to point here, and the old discussion moved to an archive of this page? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:48, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I think you would be within your bold rights to re-target that redirect to the more sensible destination; here. My76Strat (talk) 21:29, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Request for Admin Help

I tried more or less that, but now I need administrator help. I moved the ancient archive to Archive0. So far, so good, but the archive template didn't display 0. So then I renamed/moved Archive7 to Archive8. Then I tried to move Archive6 to Archive7, but ran into the redirect. Can someone move each of the archives and then delete the redirects to allow the moving to continue? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:29, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:10, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Objections

This policy seems very extreme and unreasonable in contrast to Wikipedia's generally calm, neutral stance on a variety of issues. I would like to highlight the parts of this policy that I object to and which I feel should be improved or deleted. For reference, here is the definition of disallowed conduct given in the lead:

Editors [a] who attempt to use Wikipedia to pursue or facilitate inappropriate adult–child relationships, [b] who advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships on or off-wiki (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children), or [c] who identify themselves as pedophiles, will be blocked indefinitely.

There are several issues I can see with this policy. First, the terms used in the policy (e.g. "inappropriate adult-child relationships") are quite vague. The idea of what constitutes a child or adult, and what types of relationships are appropriate at various ages, varies across cultures. Even in places where the threshold for presumed sexual agency is demarcated by age of consent laws, there is often a legal gray area for close-in-age relationships, and the actual age of consent varies considerably across different jurisdictions. Therefore, such terms cannot be taken for granted and require clarification.

Additionally, the ban on advocacy (part [b]) seems absurdly broad. In general, Wikipedia has a clear standard of judging a user based on their actions rather than on their views, and even past infractions can be forgiven if a user ceases his or her disruptive behavior. In this case, however, someone who has ever at any time, and in any context, advocated any kind of "inappropriate adult-child relationships", is prevented from all editorial participation whatsoever. This doesn't just include articles pertaining to the subject. A user who has voiced such opinions is equally banned from editing the article on pedophilia as the article on potassium. Quite frankly, this doesn't make any sense.

The "on or off wiki" part of [b] seems particularly egregious. This clause seems to presume that anyone whose views have been found objectionable (by whoever decides these things) is completely ineligible for participation on Wikipedia, without any consideration of their actual conduct on Wikipedia. As far as I know, this is the only subject for which Wikipedia has such a policy. It is as if Wikipedia is saying, "We welcome diverse views on every subject, except adult-child relationships, for which there CAN BE NO DISCUSSION". This is especially bizarre given how vague the definition of these banned opinions actually is.

The most objectionable part of the policy is [c]. The current medical understanding of pedophilia is that it is a mental disorder. To prohibit such individuals from editing Wikipedia is blatant discrimination. It assumes that anyone with this disorder is inherently unfit to edit an encyclopedia, that regardless of their actual behavior, their very editorial presence on Wikipedia constitutes a threat to children. This is patent nonsense.

To conclude, I feel the policy as-is is too vague to be useful and irrationally judges users based on their presumed "essence" rather than their actions on the wiki. Furthermore, I am unconvinced that part [b] (especially the "off wiki" part) and [c] actually serve to protect children, and feel that these parts instead function solely as an expression of discriminatory views on the part of the Wikipedia community.

To fix these problems, I recommend the following changes be made to the policy:

  • Define precisely the type of conduct or views that are disallowed, or outline the decision process for determining what behavior is considered unacceptable. This could be done explicitly or by reference to existing legal codes.
  • Modify part [b] to only refer to opinions expressed on-wiki
  • Remove part [c], or modify it to discriminate solely based on history of illegal actions (e.g. criminal conviction), not identity (e.g. medical diagnosis of pedophilia)

I expect much of this has been previously discussed, so if someone could point me towards such discussions I would appreciate it. Augurar (talk) 17:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Umm. No. This isn't about whether or not people *are* pedophiles, it's whether or not they're advocating adult/child relationships. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has already learned the hard lesson that so many websites that permit user interaction have learned: that if there are children and those with pedophilic predilictions on the same website, the opportunities for inappropriate interaction are manifest. Wikimedia sites even provide an interface for private user-to-user interactions ("Email this user"). While it is not possible to prevent all instances of inappropriate interaction, this community has made the decision to remove those whose behaviour (whether by self-disclosing, by editing in a way that the community has defined as promoting adult/child relationships, or by other means) indicates a significantly increased risk of inappropriate contact with child editors. Speaking as someone who is "stuck" with having to address this issue (as a member of the Arbitration Committee), I'd prefer that the WMF ensure that there are sufficient resources in their Community Department to be able to address these situations directly; after all, we only have authority on this one project. The English Wikipedia community has consciously decided that children can participate in this project. In the balance of probabilities of "what could go wrong", permitting pedophiles and pedophilia advocates to edit alongside children is pretty high on the list of things that can cause reputational harm to a project, not to mention to any child who is inappropriately contacted. Risker (talk) 04:07, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I can tell you as an editor who was around before this policy, it was bad. Really bad. Like the-law-getting-involved bad. I didn't create or even lobby for this policy, but in my many years seeing it in action, it has been a very good thing and I have not once seen it misused. I'll admit the off-wiki thing is a little odd, but I did interact with such an editor (overtly self-ID'ed off-wiki) , and I recall that though he carefully avoided overt advocacy on-wiki, he used to constantly "flirt" with it in roundabout ways, making subversive remarks or subtlety altering pages. Ultimately we are better off without him around.Legitimus (talk) 14:41, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Looking at article 21 of s:Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, it seems that it might potentially be illegal for residents of the European Union to support, enforce or assist with the enforcement of certain parts of this policy:
If a user identifies as a pædophile, then I guess the user has a "sexual orientation". If the user "advocate[s] inappropriate adult–child relationships", then I assume that the user has "political or any other opinion[s]". What would happen if a user is blocked by an EU administrator under this policy, and the user then sues the administrator? Exactly which parts of this policy can be enforced by an EU resident without risking that the police will knock on the door? If someone posts a comment on my talk page telling that "Alice identifies as a pædophile" or "Bob advocates inappropriate adult-child relationships", do I have to immediately remove the comment from my talk page or risk being arrested for violating the Charter of Fundamental Rights, or is it legal to reply or even to report this to the arbitration committee? How exactly does the Charter of Fundamental Rights work in practice with regard to these issues? --Stefan2 (talk) 23:51, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
That is, quite frankly, a load of horseshit. Pedophilia is a disgusting, filthy crime; it is not a protected class of sexual orientation by ANY standard, even the loosey-goosey socialism of the European Union. Pedos and their advocates will be squashed like bugs and driven from the project. Period. Tarc (talk) 00:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
What Tarc said, there are no laws that I have ever heard of within the EU which classes child molesters as a sexual orientation. Darkness Shines (talk) 23:06, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
To offer a factual response to those comments, paedophilia is a mental state that is regarded as a mental illness by most and as a sexual orientation by some, it is not a crime. Child abuse, particularly sexual abuse of children, is a crime. Not every paedophile sexually abuses children (see e.g. Virtuous Pedophiles) and not everybody who sexually abuses a child is a paedophile. I am not aware of anybody who has classed child molestation as a sexial orientation, but there exist campaigns to recognise paedophilia as a sexual orientation.
While I agree that those practising or advocating the sexual abuse of children should not be editing Wikipedia, a literal reading of this policy would allow the banning of an 18 year old who was in a relationship with a 15 year old in a jurisdiction where such a relationship is legal (such as Spain) just for holding the belief that such a relationship should be legal in the United States (where AIUI it is not currently), even if they edited only articles about theoretical physics and never interacted with any Wikipedian under the age of 30. Equally a literal reading of this policy would allow for the banning of any lawyer (including a public defender) who has ever defended anyone who has self-identified as a paedophile, even if the case was unrelated to children or sexual behaviour. If these cases are not what the policy is intended to apply to then it is absolutely right that a rational discussion be had about changing it to reflect what it is intended to cover. Thryduulf (talk) 13:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
While I cannot agree with Tarc's comment about pedophilia (any more than I would call someone "disgusting" because they struggle with any mental disorder), they are spot on in calling Stefan2's comments "horseshit". I would apply the same term to Thryduulf's suggestion that a lawyer who had defended someone who self-identified as a pedophile would be or could be banned under this policy. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
It would indeed be an exceedingly brave person who blocked the lawyer described above, but their actions are certainly off-wiki advocating for a paedophile and thus blockable under the letter of this policy. Stefan's comments correctly report that the European charter prohibits discrimination based on a political or other belief, and that there are people who believe adult-child relationships are not always inappropriate. He is however not correct to say that a European charter holds any sway on the policies of a private organisation based in the United States. If someone alleges anywhere on wiki that another user is a paedophile or advocates child abuse then this policy is clear that such statements should be oversighted (in accordance with policies on libel and harassment) and reported to the arbitration committee for investigation. Thryduulf (talk) 20:23, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that all users editing from the European Union need to comply with EU law, or else these users could be sued. If a significant portion of the Wikipedia users risk breaking the law by enforcing Wikipedia policy, there should in my opinion be a warning about this. For example, there was a recent case where the French police exercised French law by forcing an administrator on French Wikipedia to delete an article (which was subsequently restored by an administrator from Switzerland). Whenever I move a file to Commons, or upload any file, I additionally check that uploading the file to Commons would not violate the copyright law of my own country, as that could mean a legal risk for me. It is unclear what the EU law says on this point (there doesn't seem to be any case law), and it isn't hard to find pages on the Internet where someone thinks that discrimination of pædophilies is illegal in the European Union. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2007-3383+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN for example, which received a very vague reply. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
All you've done so far is say 1) "the EU forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation", 2) "some people thing pedophilia is a sexual orientation" 3) "therefore Euros who uphold this policy may be in violation of EU human rights." Do you not see how ridiculously stupid of a strawman this is? Tarc (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Thryduulf, I don't believe that anyone would equate acting as an advocate on behalf of a pedophile with advocating pedophilia. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Just a small correction: It wasn't the community that "made the decision" to enforce this policy. Arbcom started enforcing it at some point, and people got used to it, and they eventually created this page to document what arbcom was doing. --Conti|✉ 23:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Hmmm, sort of. I believe this policy existed prior to the existence of the Arbitration Committee, but for many years this policy was indeed unwritten. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
If I remember correctly, the community was quite divided on this issue, and wheel wars happened with regular intervals on the issue. Arbcom made rulings on individual users, but never on the overall matter. Then Fred Bauder (then a member of Arbcom) blocked a dozen or so users for promoting pedophilia. This went unopposed (perhaps because it was seen as official arbcom action, even though it was never claimed that it was), and created a de facto policy, which eventually was written down at this page. There never was a community discussion that resulted in any kind of consensus, and given the topic, I doubt there ever will be. --Conti|✉ 17:26, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
If this is the case, then I guess the policy may not be up for debate. However, the description of it (this page) could change to make it more clear what the nature and intent of the policy is. Augurar (talk) 04:50, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Augurar, please see the archives of this talk page for many many discussion about some of these same points. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:58, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, at one point Jimbo declared this (well, a shorter version of this) policy by fiat as well, in a quasi-official action. It's all in the history. Gigs (talk) 20:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Thryduulf, thanks for pretty much repeating some of what I stated at the end of the #Clarification needed on some issues section above. I was tempted to somewhat repeat myself on that in this section, but then I decided to let it go because I already clarified there in that section that people often conflate pedophilia with child sexual abuse, and I know that most people will (until the general public is finally more educated on these subjects and understands that sexual attraction to underage post-pubescents is not pedophilia, and that a person can sexually abuse a prepubescent child without having a primary, exclusive or even true sexual attraction to that child). Again, pedophilia and child sexual abuse do overlap, obviously, and often exist with the other, but they don't always. I was waiting to see if someone would correct others on that in this section.
Also, my experience on Wikipedia with pedophiles is similar to Legitimus's experience with them at this site. A lot of pedophiles were skewing the topic of pedophilia and related topics in 2007, for example, and it was horror to continually have to fight them almost day in and day out. There was Legitimus and a few others helping me fight the pedophile trouble at this site while Wikipedia was being reported in the news as being rampant with pedophiles. The pedophile trouble was not so much trouble by 2010, though we still had enough of them to deal with at that time as well. And now the pedophile trouble, and trouble concerning sex offenders who sexually go after young (underage) teenagers, on Wikipedia is minor (meaning dealing with pedophiles or sex offenders skewing the topic of pedophilia or related topics or sexually going after our underage editors). Flyer22 (talk) 21:26, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to go back to basics here and agree what the aims of this policy are. From reading these discussions those aims seem to be (in no particular order):

  1. Prevent people using Wikipedia to contact minors (as defined by US law) for nefarious purposes.
  2. Prevent people using Wikipedia (in articles or elsewhere) to advocate in favour of child abuse
  3. Prevent people using Wikipedia (in articles or elsewhere) to advocate for relationships between adults and minors (as defined by US law)
  4. Prevent people who hold or are deemed to hold views about relationships between adults and minors that are significantly different to US law from editing Wikipedia
  5. Prevent any libel or harassment stemming from accusations (whether correct or incorrect)
  6. Appease the tabloid press

These raise the following questions. None of these are rhetorical, and none imply anything about the current policy.

  1. This is obviously something we should do our best to do, but
    • Is this policy the only one that enables us to do this or is it also covered in others? If there is crossover do we need the duplication? Do they contradict each other at all?
    • Do this (and any other relevant policies) match what we actually do?
    • What part(s) of this policy are relevant to this aim? Which parts would not be needed if this were the only aim?
  2. Again we should be doing this, but we don't want people using Wikipedia to advocate for anything (legal or otherwise) so
    • Do we need a separate policy?
    • If this policy didn't exist, would our other policies allow people misusing Wikipedia in this way to be blocked? If not, why not? Do they need to be changed?
  3. Like 2, but is this catching people whose views are legal in other parts of the world? If so is this a problem? Why (not)? If it is a problem, how do we reword it so it is not?
  4. Do we need to do this if they are not advocating such relationships, e.g. simply stating their beliefs? If so, why?
    • If only people who agree with the mainstream may edit, is this detrimental to an NPOV article? If so, how do we resolve this?
    • Are there other views people may hold which disqualify them from being a Wikipedian, even if they always edit in accordance with NPOV?
    • If so, what are they and why?
  5. While this is obviously something we must do, does this also apply to other allegations?
    • If so, do we need a separate policy for this or should we just have a pointer to the policy elsewhere?
    • If not, why not?
  6. Is this really a motivation?
    • If so does its necessity imply failings in other policies? Why (not)? Which policies?
    • If not, why do discussions of this policy frequently bring it up?

I stress again, these are genuine questions designed to find out whether the current policy is (a) doing what it is intended to do, (b) doing things it is not intended to do, (c) doing the things it is doing in the best way possible? I am not prejudging the answers to any of these questions, and it might be that this policy is perfect, but no policy should be above examination. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of problems with the terms were are using in this policy, but also some of the implied scope. I have noted several times in previous discussions the issue with that parenthetical remark "e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children" because the extent to which a child or minor is harmed by such relationships is a subject of legitimate inquiry and the answer is not necessarily straight-forward as the policy suggests. Also, it seems we have taken a broad interpretation of the terms "child" and "pedophilia" consistent with some individual's social outlook, but one that overlooks certain basic biological truths. One recent case involved an individual who, by all indications, would be considered an ephebophile and none of the other criteria seemed to be present. However, the editor was blocked on the basis of those off-wiki comments. It would appear this was mostly using a misguided definition of the aforementioned terms.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 03:33, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
It is probably time for me to remind people that while it's always interesting to go over these perfectly reasonable arguments for the umpteenth time, it is a fruitless exercise since this policy was imposed by the WMF. Our ability to materially change this policy is limited. If the "recent case" referred to by The Devil's Advocate is the one that I think it is, then they have, as usual, misrepresented the situation. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:12, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Obviously, our ability to materially change it is quite impressive as all you really need are a few editors to edit-war in their desired changes to the policy after an associate invokes the policy to block someone on a matter where they all happen to be influenced by the same editor publicly agitating for action. None of that was done by a WMF employee and, as far as I know, none of the substantive changes that I object to have been done by a WMF employee. Rather they have been added in by editors invoking "common practice" over previous blocks. The problem is that when you have people constantly trying to expand the scope of enforcement and bring more views or conduct under its umbrella, you eventually end up with a policy that blocks people for views or opinions that are actually legitimate and you turn the whole thing into a witch hunt.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 04:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
We have little ability to change the social mores in the wider world on this issue. The world we live in does not even entertain the slightest suggestion that adult-child (or teen in some cases) sexual relationships are ever OK in any way. And the social attitudes on this issue have gotten more strict, not less, in recent years. This is a pragmatic policy, crafted in response to the disproportionate amount of openly pro-pedophilia editors that had somehow found their way here.
If it were 80 years ago, we might have a similar policy on homosexuality. Society is not ready to have a rational conversation on this issue, and this policy reflects that. To not have this policy implies that Wikipedia should take a nearly indefensible, and currently fringe radical, activist position on this issue, through the mere action of allowing editors who openly declare this position to edit here. Almost no other issue is like this in modern western society (none that I can think of where even attempting to debate the issue is considered radical and unacceptable), so there isn't much of a slippery slope here.
So don't think of our inability to change this as some kind of WMF fiat. We can't change this policy because the world we live in requires us to have this policy. Gigs (talk) 14:42, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
That sounds like a reasonable assessment, other than the comparison to homosexuality. The implication is that perhaps many years from now, society would be ready to have a rational conversation on pedophilia acceptance. Did you mean that to come out in that way? Tarc (talk) 15:09, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I think it's possible, but keep in mind that having a rational conversation on the matter doesn't mean that the outcome would necessarily be approval or acceptance. Maybe "ready" was the wrong word, since that implies an evolution toward an end, when history reveals more of a roller coaster of attitudes and social mores. Gigs (talk) 18:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
I completely disagree. The wider world (you know the kind you experience by travelling) does not have a homogeneous opinion on anything. I second The Devil's Advocate's assessment. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 14:58, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
I second the sentiment that started this thread. I find the policy to be unhelpful and subjective. It reads more like a threat than a behavior guideline which is what this should be. The text should be based on laws (country/state/federal/international) & case law just like Wikipedia:Copyrights. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 14:54, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
And I third it. Blocking editors based on their views or mental illnesses is contrary to the spirit of this project. The bit about promoting the view that such relationships and not harmful is particularly concerning; it could cover academic experts who contend that there is a lack of evidence that child sexual abuse causes harm - see the Rind et al. controversy (I have no idea who is right in the academic debate over that study, since I lack the expertise to properly evaluate it, but it is a legitimate subject of debate). The first clause (relating to using "Wikipedia to pursue or facilitate inappropriate adult–child relationships") is fine, except that what "child" means needs to be clarified - ages of consent vary by jurisdiction from 12 to 21; does it depend on that? Neljack (talk) 09:29, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Images

Wikipedia has a moral obligation to prevent its website from being used to sexually exploit minors, and to prevent minors from publishing sexually explicit images of themselves.

Users uploading or including sexually explicit images or videos in Wikipedia must present evidence that the subjects are at least 18 years of age. "Sexually explicit" means any depiction or simulation of sexual activity or lasciviousness involving one or more persons. Mere nudity, such as artistic photography, or photos of medical conditions or anatomy, are not considered to be sexually explicit for the purpose of this policy. Wikipedia is not censored. Sexually explicit material may be included where relevant, subject to age verification.

I recommend adding the above text to the policy page to clarify what many editors feel is existing practice. See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#New criteria 2 and Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#New criteria. Please feel to edit as needed. Notice that some images on Commons already include a declaration that the subjects are of legal age. I'm not sure what the exact standards need to be for evidence, but that's something we can work out by discussion when cases arrise. Jehochman Talk 12:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I fully support this, but I don't think we need that first sentence. Wikipedia:Child protection already explains what it is about, so there's no need to do it again to justify why we would require proof for sexually explicit images. Also, it might be useful to include something along the lines of "Unless it is obvious that the person depicted is over 18 years old". --Conti|✉ 13:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
For instance, if the image is of a famous pornographic film actor, used in their biography which includes a reference to their date of birth, that might count as implicit age verification. I've move the first sentence to a preamble so it is clear that it doesn't need to become redundant text in the policy page. Jehochman Talk 15:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
An image could be removed from a Wikipedia article but remain on Commons. There are numerous people on Commons who think that the sky will fall down if the site is purged of sexual images. As Jimbo said on his talk page, is not helpful to draw in the law, because it varies from country to country and the presence of material on Wikipedia does not automatically guarantee an endorsement in line with the General Disclaimer.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 16:46, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
there are two issues. One, we should follow the law where our servers are located. Second, we should act ethically. It is not unreasonable to ask for age verification with explicit images and also consent of the subject. We don't want Wikipedia used for any bad purposes. What they do on Commons is beyond m control. Lets try to set a good example here. Jehochman Talk 17:15, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
It is true that all material on Wikimedia servers is subject to State of Virginia law. Jimbo pointed out that the WMF is wary of stating or implying that all Wikimedia content will meet this requirement at all times, because it would go against the letter and spirit of the General Disclaimer. It is well nigh impossible to guarantee that a photo dragged in from Flickr will meet the requirements of 2257 Wikipedia and Commons are large sites based on user generated content, not a porn magazine or video. This is an issue for WMF legal, and the wording should be based on their advice.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:35, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
WMF, in the person of Jimmy Wales, asked us to draft the policy. They want community input first, then they will review it. Jehochman Talk 20:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Oppose addition. We should not be introducing legal language or referencing the law in this manner without explicit advice from the foundation legal team. If we get it wrong then we could be unintentionally get the foundation into legal hot water or complicate other things. For starters I'd want to see legal opinion that this would not harm Wikipedia's/the Foundation's status re not being liable for what user's upload. Thryduulf (talk) 19:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I also had this concern so I've already asked Jimmy about this and he said that we should craft policy, and he will run it by legal for comments. He said this change would likely reduce their legal problems, rather than create. As best I understand, the position is that Wikimedia is not subject to 2257 because this is non-commercial use. However, 2257 is motivated by ethical concerns, and we share those concerns, so we may correctly implement policies that are similar to 2257: sexually explicit images should only involve persons 18+ years old, and we need some sort of evidence. This evidence might be as simple as a statement by the uploader about how they found or created the image and how old the subjects are. Once we craft a policy, legal will advise how it might need to be adjusted, if at all. Jehochman Talk 20:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Modified copy:

Users uploading or including sexually explicit images or videos in Wikipedia must present evidence that the subjects are adults. "Sexually explicit" means any depiction or simulation of sexual activity or lasciviousness involving one or more persons. Mere nudity, such as artistic photography, or photos of medical conditions or anatomy, are not considered to be sexually explicit for the purpose of this policy. Because Wikipedia is not censored, sexually explicit material may be included where relevant, subject to age verification.

Testing this in the article. Please discuss. Jehochman Talk 22:40, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted your changes to the policy because there is no consensus for them. This is not the first time you have been told to get consensus before modifying policy, if you do not wish to be blocked for disruptive editing I strongly recommend following that advice.
As to the substance of the edits, we need to make any wording much clearer than that - Wikipedia editors are not lawyers, nor are they all familiar with American legal interpretations of what "sexual activity" or "lasciviousness" means. I have a larger than average vocabulary and I don't know what "lasciviousness" means without looking it up.
Regarding Jimbo's comments and the massive verbiage from others that surrounds them, I do not have time to read them sufficient to fully understand them at this point. Thryduulf (talk) 23:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I think you should take your finger-waving bravado and block threats and get stuffed, quite honestly. We already have the expectation that if one uploads an image of a nude person, that the person in question is of a legal age. This is just putting down into words the common sense that we already expect of project contributors. Tarc (talk) 23:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Regrdless of what you think, there is no consensus to add those words to the policy. As I read Jimbo's words he said to come up with a form of words that can be passed to legal for them to look at in advance of making them policy. Thryduulf (talk) 23:12, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Seems like common sense. Tom Harrison Talk 23:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
The principle is arguably common sense, the form of words used is far from that. Thryduulf (talk) 23:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Note: I have asked at WP:AN/I#WP:CHILDPROTECT needs more eyes for additional input here. Thryduulf (talk) 23:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Policy page is full-protected for 3 hours as it's become the subject of an edit war.
I hope you all realize how grossly inappropriate it was to edit war it back and forth rather than continue discussing on the talk page here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:16, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Less is often more. We might leave out the sentence "Sexually explicit" means... Tom Harrison Talk 23:23, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Support. Not sure where to put this, as the section is a bit haphazard, but I support adding the wording as the latest proposed, as soon as possible, and per Tarc. (asked to come here by ANI post by Thryduulf) Begoon talk 23:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. Good idea, much needed, and the wording works – though it might be worth adding that evidence is only required if it isn't obvious from the image that the subject is over 18. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:26, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support No need to let perfection be the enemy of the good, if the current proposal proves unmanageable in practice it will be refined. The principal makes sense. We do expect that such images are of persons of age to give consent. So, this merely operationalizes that with burden and proof. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:28, 17 May 2013 (UTC). Slim Virgin's caveat is fine. Alanscottwalker (talk) 07:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • strong support something in this vein needs to be added. What commons wants is irrelevant to us. If its not perfect it can be tweaked over time, but this is better than the nothing we have currently. Agree that obvious 18+ does not require proof. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support as a proud teenage editor, but think we should explicitly say that age verification is only necessary when there's reasonable grounds for doubt. Rather like the "18 to buy; 29 to not show ID" laws for tobacco in the U.S. (Yes, I recognize the paradox in that particular example)... Basically, if you upload a random dick-pic, you should have to prove it's an adult's; if it's a full-body nude and you can see a grey beard and wrinkles, then there's no need. Obviously there's also the aforementioned example of images of a specific individual whose age is reliably provided in their article (e.g. "So-and-so McBigBoobs is a 20-year-old American pornographic actress" alongside a picture taken a year ago.) — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 01:36, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. I had a version of this long reply typed up before MONGO's reply and I had to start over again because my computer was accidentally shut off (and this is why I usually save copies of things I type up, even on Wikipedia); so without further delay: Though age of majority varies, I support no nude images of people under the age of majority...unless it's a topic such as circumcision (people familiar with that topic should understand why such an image would be in that article). Unlike age of consent, which, as noted above, can also vary, age of majority is 18 in most countries and so it's significantly more consistent to go by that than age of consent. Above, SlimVirgin stated "if it isn't obvious from the image that the subject is over 18"; in response to that, I point out that if the picture is of genitals, we cannot, by simply viewing the picture, definitively know if the person is over the age of 18. We cannot know because a 16-year-old guy, for example, may be post-pubescent (as most guys that age are) and therefore have genitals that resemble an adult's (because he is a complete biological adult). Even if the face is included clearly in the picture, it's difficult to tell apart a 17-year-old from an 18-year-old, for example. And many late teenagers (ages 16-19) are indistinguishable age-wise from early 20-somethings, which is why they can often get into a 21+ club with a fake ID. In fact, those age groups are generally indistinguishable age-wise, which is why a 21-year-old actor can portray a 17-year-old in a television show or a film without viewers suspecting that the actor is not a teenager.
  • In the discussion about this image topic at Jimbo Wales's talk page, Jehochman stated, "This would also have the benefit of cleaning up Commons if the policy were extended there. People keep asking why Wikipedia is such a hostile place for female editors; the excessive and irresponsible uploading of porn is part of it." I believe that it's clear that if this proposal passes, which it seems that it will, then Wikipedia will lose most of its real-life sexually explicit images, or simply real-life images of sex anatomy, because most of those images have no age verification. So, for example, the Vulva article will lose images, which will make the people who have complained about all the images in that article happy about that. I don't mind a drastic reduction of real-life sexually explicit images on Wikipedia, and this is for two reasons: Reason 1 is that (unlike a few images of the vulva for the Vulva article) most of these images do not help our readers understand the topics, either not significantly or at all. Reason 2 is that I'm tired of people justifying the inclusion of sexually explicit images on Wikipedia by citing WP:NOTCENSORED, and those same people not understanding, forgetting, ignoring or being unaware that WP:Offensive material matters as well. Like I stated elsewhere on Wikipedia, most of the times, from what I have seen, erotic images, especially real-life ones, even those that are meant to be educational, distract our readers from the article's text; this is why we get so many complaints about such images on the article talk pages from our readers and/or editors. Flyer22 (talk) 02:13, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Don't be silly. Anatomy is not sexually explicit. The proposal even says so. Please read it again. Jehochman Talk 02:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Wasn't being silly. And here's why I wasn't: First, I used the word or; I stated "real-life sexually explicit images, or simply real-life images of sex anatomy." So I am aware that sex anatomy can be considered not sexually explicit. Are you aware that it can be considered sexually explicit? I am speaking from experience, such as the complaints at Talk:Vulva that I mentioned. And WP:Offensive material covers sex anatomy as well. Your proposal doesn't cover sex anatomy? Fine. Either way, I clearly support it. Flyer22 (talk) 02:48, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
And you clearly are concerned about sex anatomy images as well. On Jimbo Wales's talk page, one of your concerns was File:Ejaculation educational seq 4.png; you pointed out that it has no age verification. Flyer22 (talk) 02:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose The wording above is wide open to all sorts of gaming ("must present evidence", "sexually explicit", "including", and "adults" all leave openings for gamers) and that addition to the intro of the policy saying minors uploading images of themselves would be subject to the same sanctions as an adult posting child pornography is way too much. I do support including something about how to handle images of minors, but it has to be as focused on the actual problem as possible since the consequences are extreme.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 04:40, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not seeing these extreme consequences. The worst that can happen (as compared with the free-for-all we have now), as I see it, is that we wouldn't have quite as many excess pictures of genitalia lying about. Mangoe (talk) 04:54, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Except not all of the images are excess and actually do serve an educational purpose, but would still face scrutiny under such a change. We have some editors who think an image of an erect penis is pornography in itself. Not to mention that the addition to the lede means the uploaders would be subject to the standard child protection permablock, even if the person uploading it is a minor uploading an image of his or her own body or an adult doing the same but without presenting evidence of age.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Hmm? Do potential copyright vios, or failures of wp:verfication, or failures of NPOV, prevent reverting vandalism? Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Policies preventing copyright violations do not say that you should be instantly banned without prior notification or without a way to appeal if you add a copyright violation uploaded by someone else to an article. This proposal is very different to that. If Alice adds an image to an article, and Bob later restores the image to the article by reverting someone else's vandalism, then the proposal tells that Bob should be instantly banned unless he himself has verified the age of the person on the photo, regardless of whether Alice did the same check when adding the image in the first place. Also, the way the proposal is written, it seems that it will be impossible to insert drawings of non-existing people, since only people who exist in real life can show an ID card. I see that the proposal makes no difference between images of real people and images of fictive people. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:23, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Are innocent acts treated in such a way? That does not seem to be the history of bans, at all. As to drawings, they do not have an age --so, for them the policy does not apply, on its face. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:59, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Other policies say that an editor may be blocked if violating the policy, thereby allowing administrators to choose not to block, for example if the user was unaware of what he was doing. This policy is a bit special in that it says that administrators must block users who violate the policy, thereby elliminating the option to use the WP:AGF policy. The way it is written, the age check requirement applies to everyone, regardless of whether the person is a real person or not. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

  • Oppose. I find it immoral that people are trying to impose their morals on others. Since only sentient beings have morals and websites do not have sentience, Wikipedia has no moral obligations. If you said legal obligations and quote the relevant laws (International/Federal/State/County), no one would object. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 19:26, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
    Also, whose morals do we use? Yours? Mine? Some countries outlaw women from wearing anything but whats defined by law while others have been less restrictive as early as since the 1600s. There isn't even consistency within some countries on the matter let alone continents! -- A Certain White Cat chi? 19:26, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
    This is exactly why this very policy is a horrible idea. It becomes a median for people to slowly impose their "morals" on others. This is the Free encyclopedia, not the moral or censored encyclopedia. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Are you saying that this policy is English Wikipedia's version of ace:Wikipedia:Policy on awrah images in Acehnese Wikipedia? --Stefan2 (talk) 20:40, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
      • Interesting link. If we start applying morals then yes, it would be no different. Such motions must not be allowed on any wiki if we want to remain a free encyclopedia. Free as in not censored. While we are required to comply with the relevant laws governing wherever the servers are, we must not start auto censoring ourselves. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 22:16, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
      • Also interesting is that page used to be called "Wikipedia:Pool on Sharia Law in Acehnese Wikipedia" as pointed out on IRC to me. It is very troubling. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 22:26, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
        • Ah with a little research it seems ace wikis proposal was reversed by steward action I am told. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 23:09, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia is not amoral. To begin with, we don't have that option, because the law dictates otherwise. But beyond that, you're advocating that a certain lower-than-lowest common denominator be imposed on everyone. People don't have to wonder why we don't have that many women: one reason is surely people saying that carrying around a lot of useless sexually objectifying images of women is a good thing. Mangoe (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
      Really? So if we delete all images vaginas women would flock to the site? I think I disagree with your point such that there are a lot of women contributing to the site. A lot of people (including myself) do not exactly reveal our gender.
      If the male/female is not satisfactory for you, I would qager the reason for that is the attitude you just demonstrated here. Women are NOT insecure fragile beings that need your protection. They are more than capable of standing up for themselves. Probably nothing irritates them more when a sausage fest decides what is good for them without bothering to consult them.
      -- A Certain White Cat chi? 14:19, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Are you ignorant of what has been going on around here here lately, in regards to female editors and sexism? How about having a read-through this and this, then perhaps you will be better informed as to what we're talking about. Tarc (talk) 14:44, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Sure, to me it is a problem where opinions of women matter more than the opinions of the sausage fest. Mass deleting nudity on the guise of protecting children would definitely not be the appropriate way to deal with issues of sexism though. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 17:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
People using ad hominem by the looks of it. Russavia (talk) 18:00, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose as currently worded. There are at least three issues with the proposal:
    1. The proposal will have essentially no effect. Self-created media are uploaded at Commons, not here. That's outside Wikipedia's jurisdiction. Based on my experience, I believe the proposal would be rejected at Commons. At most, this proposal can only propose to cover local uploads and use of restricted images on English Wikipedia.
    2. The proposal is overreaching and extends far beyond any reasonable ethical or legal obligation: WMF does not qualify as a secondary producer under 2257, and so is not required to keep records of ages of subjects; and the inclusion of mere "simulation[s] of sexual activity or lasciviousness," which are not restricted under 2257, moves this solidly into the realm where no children are harmed in the production of the media. Moreover, it would require age verification in cases where the subject is obviously not a minor based on inspection.
    3. No proposal is given regarding how age verification will be provided and archived, what type of verification is sufficient, and how privacy issues will be addressed.
In my opinion a meaningful child protection policy would have to be proposed on Commons, would have to exclude simulated media and cases where the subject(s) are obviously not minors, and would have to provide a systematic records submission process, including OTRS as an option. This proposal is simply not that well thought-out. Dcoetzee 22:55, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Dcoetzee. Russavia (talk) 15:53, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose The problem with policies on this issue is that there is a tendency for over-reaching in both directions--Some people will use a prohibition against porn to try to prohibit sexuality or even nudity, and some people will use a provision allowing even just nudity, to include porn. There's no harm in a diversity of opinions & it is in any case unavoidable, but it becomes a serious problem when rules which can be variously interpreted have drastic penalties. The child protection provisions are the ones in question here, and what falls under provisions as strict as that must be defined as exactly as possible. DGG ( talk ) 18:39, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

The issue of how to deal with image uploads is primarily one for Commons. In an ideal world, all sexual images should have an affirmation that

  • The image is not copyrighted.
  • All of the persons depicted are over 18.
  • All of the persons depicted consented to publication.

There are two problems with this kind of affirmation process: 1. A person could lie during the affirmation process and it would be hard to prove otherwise. 2. The affirmation should not be seen as creating a 2257 liability for WMF, which has been rejected in the past. Personally, I would not import any sexual images from Flickr to Commons, as it is a known problematic source and is by far the most common cause of this type of drama. Flickr is the real problem, not deliberate attempts to upload child porn images, which is thankfully rare.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 04:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Flickr and throwaway accounts uploading images with no sourcing whatsoever, yes. Those two make up the vast majority of sexually explicit images on commons. But this is getting a bit off-topic, this has nothing to do with child protection any more and probably should be discussed somewhere else. --Conti|✉ 11:45, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
The latest Commons image to cause teh dramah on Jimbo's talk page was File:Fingering close-up.jpg, now deleted. This survived a deletion debate in mid-2011, even though TinEye might have flagged it as Flickrwashing. Lazy transfers from Flickr to Commons are are far bigger problem than deliberate child porn uploads, which is why the problem should be tackled on Commons, not here. There would be little point in indefinitely blocking an innocent Wikipedian for assuming that images on Commons have been checked out properly when clearly they have not.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 16:27, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
About your points:
  • "The image is not copyrighted." - This happens all the time and is dealt with on a case by case basis. Even governments sometimes use copyrighted content while claiming it isn't. Copyright is indeed a serious issue indeed but copyright paranoia is disruptive. We also comply with DMCA notices should it come to that. There is no impending doom so PLEASE do not pretend like one is up on us.
  • All of the persons depicted are over 18. - See next item.
  • All of the persons depicted consented to publication. - Personality rights are handled when due. It doesn't matter if the person is nude or fully clothed. See Commons:Personality rights. Mind that the very notion of personality rights depends on jurisdiction. What may be illegal at a certain country or state may be perfectly legal elsewhere. There is no easy solution to this and content is handled on a case by case basis.
I find it troubling that content on commons is discussed on en.wikipedia without the input of seasoned editors on commons who handle such problems on a day to day basis. Good faith improvement suggestions on the existing processes will always be warmly welcome.
I have even seen people proposing having a blacklist to prevent some of the images used on en.wikipedia. This is a horrible idea. I will refuse to discuss the fate of individual images on commons here which is why I am not commenting on them.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 19:11, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Bad image list already exists. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Sure, it's purpose is to limit/prevent vandalism. Not enforce someones morals. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
That is rather a conditional support, as long as the policy is not construed or is amended to not prohibit encyclopedic historical photos like those and Phan Thi Kim Phuc, is it not? Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:01, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
The point that was I trying to make is that an affirmation process, while well meaning, is largely unworkable because it is so easy to get around it. The real problem occurs when a person lies about the status of a sexual image on Flickr (a common event) and it is then lazily imported to Commons because the licensing on Flickr was assumed to be correct.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 04:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
What objective definitions of "clearly-encyclopedic", "non-prurient" and "historical" are you proposing to use? Thryduulf (talk) 15:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Don't know what NorthbySouth means but one easily transferable standard is published in RS. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Who says it has to be an objective definition? Editorial decisions are, by their very nature, often subjective. No pre-written policy can cover every case and that's why there's dispute resolution processes. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
For normal editorial decisions I absolutely agree with you, but this is not a normal policy. It specifically says that violators must be permablocked, yes you can appeal this but this is difficult, and especially if the material has been oversighted (as the policy says it should be) then there is little evidence available to prove your innocence. Without objective definitions you are just setting this up for massive drama and good contributors getting blocked because they hold a more liberal interpretation of these terms than others. Thryduulf (talk) 11:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support - Seems like basic common sense, esp with SV's observation. If someone views this sort of thing as an "imposition on their morals", then those sorts of people should be given a swift kick in the ass out the door, IMO. Tarc (talk) 23:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose
- a) The policy would require "evidence" of the subjects age for all sexual "images".
1) Generally for artwork no such evidence could be supplied as there is no particular individual subject. So artwork would fall foul of an impossible condition. Don't think that this would be implemented "reasonably" - artwork created by wikipedia and wikimedia editors, clearly intended and used for sex education articles was particularly targeted by Jimbo and the "clean up" team.
2) The requirement for evidence in photos would undermine the anonymity of contributors. Sex educators have long been targeted (by all and sundry) and are particularly vulnerable in jurisdictions and societies where the religious right hold sway.
3) The Commons debated similar requirements for images and rejected them, chiefly on privacy grounds for contributors and subjects. Assertions by the photographer (particularly about the consent of the subject) are encouraged but not enforced. Commons editors will always delete images where under-age is suspected and report any kiddiporn to the FBI.
- b) This is supposed to be a child protection policy: it blocks pedophiles who might prey upon young editors; it blocks pedo-advocacy that encourages those with a predisposition to harm children to feel that this is OK. But this proposed addition has nothing to do with protecting any children, it is a misplaced censorship policy attacking Wikipedia's sex education. And it hide under the cloak of the "kiddiporn" moral panic - the previous contributor advocates giving opponents "a swift kick in the ass out the door".
- c) The force for this proposal seems to originate from discussions on the talk page of Jimbo Wales. This has been characterized as being the voice of the Wikimedia foundation. It is very far from being so. Jimbo's earlier attempts at "clean-up", were widely condemned and rejected by everybody and the WMF commisssioned a report which actually advocated sex education on the Wikipedia. (Something the "clean-up" team attacked with such zeal). --Simon Speed (talk) 00:04, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose per White Cat (とある白い猫). I couldn't have said it better myself, and I would extend this logic to apply to this entire policy in general. ThemFromSpace 20:28, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose per the common sense of people without moral panic (and I say it as a person who is adult for only 5 months, after being a mild hikikomori since mid-2009, a social phobic since early 2010 and a strong, not-out-of-my-house hikikomori since early 2012, so I still think of myself as a minor and a teen). How in the world can we have a free encyclopedia where people who will neither hurt nor advocating hurting anybody will receive permaban just because of completely legal opinions? When completely legal, often useful images will be removed without discussion just because of this pornophobic, or even "genitoanthropophobic", hysteria? When the major reason for teh dramaz can be completely solved in one of our closest sibling projects?
I'd even humorously suggest a Viking invasion to Commons and its supposedly so invencible and sectarian pornophilic lobby (not to mass delete content we don't agree with in an unilateral decision, obviously) rather than a much worse continuation of – yes! – CENSURA here. If people can legally do something and it won't impede WP of successfully being the free online encyclopedia, then allowing it will always have its merit.
Of course child molesters and their supporters should be permabanned but seriously, as Flyer22 pointed out people aren't still educated about what is a tomato, what is a potato, what is a sweet potato, what is a yam, and what is a taro or an oqa. And if this lack of education includes common sense thinking it is adequate for someone to be home neuterized, physically abused, convinced to kill himself out of a fake promise to not disclose his ephebophile status to the world, and further making a lie that this person abused and killed this long "disappeared" girl, may The Flying Spaghetti Monster help you guys. As a person from a country where the age of consent is 14 (the age of the girl that did it in the film, that by coincidence I watched tomorrow), I have to agree with Toaru Shiroi Neko (white cat) that it isn't right for people to decide HERE at this site, in a place that "belongs to everyone", what is morality and what isn't, and I think it would be even valid in our mission to tell people that their moral grounds are dead wrong if there's a whole lot of evidence (as we do with everything, it is Wikipedia, people!) as long as we are complying with the law.
I know I am, and in this issue especifically will always be as far as Brazilian law is of concern. Will I get permabanned for thinking it is ridiculous that in parts of America a person my age, who can already vote, marry, then drink, smoke, drive, etc. is still a child for such purposes? Not sure. Lguipontes (talk) 13:36, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
This is about having people certify that the people depicted in sexual imagery are of legal age according the jurisdiction where the servers are. If a 14 yo Brazilian has the need to post images of themselves in sexual contexts then there is always Orkut. John lilburne (talk)
Sorry, this whole discussion is confusing (I dropped by here, as we say, "with a parashoot"), my English is still intermediate no matter how much I read, search and study, and I didn't understood this thread is solely about the photos (there seems to be 3 parallel discussions taking place here, I thought I could just vote all of my opinion in only one). I was agreeing with the points of people saying the policy, or at least how we are taking it into acts, is excessive (e.g. Thryduulf, Toaru, Russavia, Wnt) and that those disagreeing with the people saying the policy is excessive (e.g. Tarc) demonstrated to have kind of a moral panic that one doesn't need here, and that we should forefrontely need legal experts and a policy that is solely about law in the first place. Even if Virginia is such Republican place, I don't think all the censorship that this policy presently assumes to be necessary is the minimal extent we need. THEN, we can decide on whether we should do to photos. But I think it isn't a problem of Wikipedia, it is a problem of Commons.
Answering the discussion in the other threads, in my humble opinion, in a perfect world, I'd say that those polemic Flickr "albums" or whatever taking pictures out of their context, even if presented together, should be seen as cute, nostalgic or anything else rather than sexual. Even if they are seen as sexual in common sense, as long as it isn't illegal, I think it should become a reason for debate on the attitudes we have to images, rather than keep this mediaeval posture on banning people for their opinion if this isn't illegal in Virginia or the region from where they come from just because those out of the project think it is the right thing to do out of their own "abuse sickos worse than Hitler!11!!" mantras (if I understood it correctly, since Wikipedia is just a non-commercial internet "forum", they have almost no problem whatsoever with what views we have here on e.g. nudity and age of consent reform; America got white supremacist websites always free for freedom of speech, I can't believe one would sue or even shut down us for insane pedo advocacy accusations). Lguipontes (talk) 20:14, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
But this isn't a perfect world, and this isn't about a moral panic. Its about doing what is right ethically. People post images of their kids on social networks all the time. Some post them on flickr maybe have a CC license attached. But they don't necessarily understand copyright licenses, they aren't lawyer, they probably didn't even mean to use the license. One certainly sees people flipping licenses there from ARR to CC-BY and back again all the time. Now one can take a hard arsed stance when it comes to photos of their roses, but one needs a different attitude when it comes to photos of their kids urinating. Unless one is very sensitive to how those photos are displayed there will be hell to play if the parents ever discover them in wikipedia. License not withstanding, if they are appearing in page of 20-30 other kids urinating, if any of them happens to appear next to others in cat watersports (sexual) or returned in searches with images of people masturbating there will be major shit about it. No one will be listening about licenses, bugs in search, or anything like that they'll be focused on the fact that a organisation with $42 million a year in donations shouldn't allow that to happen. John lilburne (talk) 21:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
As I said, I was answering another question. Another debate. Don't get hard to play as I already answered this, to me those questions are for COMMONS, not WP. Yes, Wikimedia Foundation shouldn't have inappropriate images anywhere in the first place. Did I say otherwise? No. What Wikipedia shouldn't have too is censorship. We already have a lot of problem at putting information in articles, and even so, major shameful media reports accusing the project of sexism, right-wing bias and others already happen in regard to our content. In no way I suggested that we shouldn't present ourselves as fully ethical or legal. I just said users, including me, are tired of those countless policies that an average person would hardly always comply, makes information from non-English-speaking countries such as here even harder to access and get here (as some cultures really don't give a f*** about rules and it is certainly the case of those guys that speak foreign languages in English online gaming servers where they cheat like hell until a regional IP-block takes place), and adding another, hard one, to them as a cherry at the top of an already absurd that permaban people for opinions, is too, in itself, nonsense, and that the discussion we should be having here is how much of opinions we can give without breaking the laws of Virginia. Lguipontes (talk) 21:53, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It is true that a plain reading of Jehochman's proposal would affect only things prohibited under the legal Terms of Use at the bottom of every edit page, stringently enforced by the Foundation: "Misusing Our Services for Other Illegal Purposes - Posting child pornography or any other content that violates applicable law concerning child pornography;" Under those Terms of Use this can already be addressed by calling the WMF, even dialling 911, or for the lazy, mentioning the case on ANI and assuming someone will be alarmed. The problem is that you're taking this undisputed legal mandate on Wikipedia and dumping it into a cluster-fuck of non-community policy that we can't enforce, can't change, and which appears to discourage public reporting of these critical incidents - otherwise known as WP:Child protection. The only thing good about this policy now is that it only affects identifying as a pedophile or advocating pedophilia, neither of which is actually against the law or time-critical. So when people write ArbCom with their little amateur PI searches and get ignored for two weeks, and then post their case in public on Jimbo Wales' talk page and don't get revdeleted or even hatted while they press for action, the potential damage isn't that tremendous. (Which is good, because that's what actually seems to happen) But if you appear to give someone who has spotted child porn on Wikipedia the instruction to e-mail ArbCom and don't talk to anybody about it, that's an utter disaster waiting to happen. Wikipedia is not going to be able to hide from liability or blame for user input if they insist on a top-down policy giving a special governance committee sole control over something and then they don't react. I would also, of course, be concerned about the opposite extreme - that some anti-nudity extremists get in ArbCom and decide to interpret Russavia's innocent examples below as actually prohibited under the proposed text, then ban the uploader citing this policy, the most infamous of all of Wikipedia's many scarlet letters. Either way, the net effect of a move like this is to concentrate even more power in a few volunteers (ArbCom) who are incapable of perfectly and justly ruling all Wikipedia on every issue. Wnt (talk) 18:30, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
The policy affects advocating sexual interaction between adults and children, and adults who seemingly advocate that such interactions do not cause harm to the child in question, not only adults who advocate pedophilia. It uses the wording "advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships." Of course, some have argued that "child" is not defined by the policy and that "advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships" is vague. Flyer22 (talk) 19:06, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
That's what I meant, sorry; but I don't think the distinction changes what I'm saying there. Wnt (talk) 19:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Every porn is sacred

I am a bit dismayed that some editors so love the porn that they are willing argue endlessly to ensure that porn is never "CENSORED!!!". A great deal of the troublesome images have been scraped from Flickr by throwaway accounts, and the CC 2.0 attribution link is dead because Flickr has deleted the image. Images lacking meta data are also an issue, because it's clear that the uploader probably didn't take the images themselves; they found it somewhere. These images are of highly dubious provenance. Nobody really knows the copyright status. We don't know the age of the subjects. We don't know if the subjects consented to sexy pics of themselves being uploaded. We need a little balance. It's time to stop fighting along the battle lines of "Porn is Dirty" and "Every porn is sacred". Instead, we need to calmly apply our standard rules for copyright verification, and in addition, we need to ask uploaders to confirm that subjects are adults (per standards in the United States where our servers reside, and whereever the photo was taken), and that the subjects have consented. If the assertions are missing or not credible (e.g. throwaway account uploading professional-looking porn with no meta data), then the image has to go away, from Wikipedia and eventually from Commons. This isn't censorship; it's common sense and respect for the rights of photographers and photo subjects. Jehochman Talk 13:17, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

The place where every porn is sacred is Commons, not Wikipedia. There should be a moratorium on allowing transfers of explicit sexual images from Flickr to Commons, because it is a known problematic source. Lying about copyright, age and personality rights is a frequent problem with sexual images on Flickr.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:35, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
The few objections above that 'this should be handled on Commons ' seem misplaced and irrelevant. Whatever Commons does or does not do, English Wikipedia, will continue to mark its own way. They are different Projects. Moreover, we already apply good faith to multiple aspects of uploader's representations about images, that will not change, but in some areas we simply ask for more info, it is in one area of that, that the proposal seeks more info, and the application of such info to editorial decisions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I fully support the principle of what you are saying, but only object to the desired implementation. Particularly, having a violation of the very broad criteria you apply serve as a basis for a block under this policy is likely to get a lot of people subject to the very strict child protection block even if there is not an actual child protection issue i.e. the media does not actually depict a minor and was self-made.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 21:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I should say that I find the title of this section needlessly hyperbolic. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
It's a reference to Monty Python's Every sperm is sacred. Jehochman Talk 23:26, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm aware of that, but it's still ridiculous and does a disservice to the people arguing. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:40, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Hyperbolic. I'm not sure this word means what you think it means. Jehochman Talk 17:08, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Copyright violations are of course a problem and need to be checked carefully. This is most easily done by adding certain pages to your watchlist and checking certain categories for new images. For example, I've noticed that images added to MediaWiki:Bad image list often are copyright violations, so I've added that page to my watchlist as a convenient way to find copyright violations to report. I don't know how often sexually explicit images in general are copyright violations, though, as most of the files I report as copyright violations belong to completely different topics (for example photos of buildings or fully dressed people grabbed from random websites). Also, I don't know exactly how people currently determine if a person is old enough to appear in pornography. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:34, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Flickr is a rummage sale of dubiously licensed images, this has been known for a long time. Flickr should not be used as a source for sexually explicit images by Wikipedia or Commons. Most of the child protection and "Commons is broken" dramas on Jimbo's talk page could be avoided by following this one simple rule.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:39, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
No, it really wouldn't, they would just find something else to complain about. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:40, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, yes, it very much would. It would also dramatically reduce the amount of random porn on Commons, however. --Conti|✉ 10:11, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
My experience of dubiously licensed commons images is that if you tag them for deletion on Commons the admins delete them without any fuss or debate, though it usually takes a few days, sometimes weeks. Someone demonstrated a while back that deleting poorly licensed images by complaining on Jimbo's page was a much higher profile route that generated more dramah. ϢereSpielChequers 10:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
I second the notion. If copyrights are your worry please discuss it on the policy discussing them. Copyright is the weakest angle in this discussion. I have not seen any other website that takes copyrights as seriously as commons. How many DMCA notices do you think commons got in the past decade? Not that many, if any. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 14:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Do we really need to try to craft some policy?

I am afraid of crafting a policy that might ban legitimate historical images such as the Nanking rape image just so that we have something written down for people who think commons is their own personal porn server. I say forget about trying to carefully craft some policy which will inevitably be abused, delete the goddamn basement porn here and on commons, block anyone who keeps uploading it, and move on with more important matters. We have venues for dealing with borderline cases on a case by case basis already, which is how they need to be dealt with, not through some policy that inevitably either throws away encyclopedic stuff or carves out a million exceptions that turn into loopholes. Gigs (talk) 16:32, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Loopholes exist in laws. Wikipedia policies aren't laws. They are useful and should be followed to an extent but can be completely ignored if the conditions are right. This is the free encyclopedia not the censored encyclopedia and likewise commons is the free image repository not the censored image repository. Free as in free of charge and not censored. This has been the mission of this site. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 14:04, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
The free actually refers to free of cost, and free to reuse and exploit without discrimination. There's no part of our free content mission that requires us be free of "censorship". We do have long-standing general policies and practices that we should censor as little as possible (especially if the only reason is to avoid offending people or groups), but that's not a direct result of our core mission.
It's a little contrived, but WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:N could be considered "censorship" under the definition you seem to be operating under. Deciding what stuff improves the project and what stuff should be thrown away is not censorship, it's a natural part of an edited medium, vs something that operates more like a big pastebin for whatever people want to spew on it. Gigs (talk) 18:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
You are dismissing one of the cornerstones of this site. It has always been free as in not censored among other things.
WP:NOTCENSORED.


Wikipedia:Offensive material#"Not censored" does not give special favor to offensive content


I think the existing consensus is pretty clear.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:18, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Actually, exclusion of any material because someone doesn't think it should be there is censorship. For example, Wikipedia is censored because WP:COPYVIO tells that Wikipedia mustn't contain copyright violations. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
This is exactly my point. We do not want to host copyrighted content because international/federal/state/county copyright laws require us to do so. In other words inclusion and exclusion is defined by objective existing laws. Fundamentally this policy offers arbitrarily restrictions on content and such restrictions should be based on laws not opinions of an elite few. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 02:48, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Take WP:CSD#G11, then. Wikipedia censors certain advertisements, not because a law says that we have to censor those advertisements but because we don't want them here for other reasons. Or take this policy, which censors the possibility for people residing in the European Union to report violations of the policy, since the policy might violate article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in specific situations. There is no law which says that Wikipedia has to protect children by making it unlawful for a large portion of Wikipedia contributors to report inappropriate activities (thereby minimising the chances that violations of the policy will be reported), but the Wikipedia community nevertheless decided to do so. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:17, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia has WP:5 pillars. That entry addresses the blue (1st) pillar. Not every policy has to be based on a law.
It is distressing that you are using human rights so lightly. That particular article focuses on discrimination not on advertising. Furthermore EU laws has no bearing on US soil unless there are agreements by the US to apply said laws in US soil such as with copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc.
Moving along... There are laws on addressing the issues of online child abuse this policy attempts to cover which is what this policy should have been based on. Exactly what laws apply to Wikipedia is a matter for WMF legal team. Only after their advice would such a rewrite would happen. After all, we need to meet our legal obligations fully. Beyond said legal obligations WP:5 pillars can be inferred to draft a policy that actually suits wikipedia's norms.
Let's be honest here this policy was drafted and enacted through hysteria when it was created. Now people are using that hysteria to rationalize making the entire site children-friendly by creating excuses to remove nudity and depictions of nudity off of pages they do not want them to appear. This policy is gravely inadequate in handling what it wants to achieve, protection of children. It for instance does not address how such cases should be handled and instead has instructions on blocks, revdels which wouldn't protect anyone.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 16:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Although European law has no bearing on US soil, lots of Wikipedia contributors are located on EU soil. It is illegal for a person inside the European Union to add any content to Wikipedia, if that content is illegal in the European Union (so I can't for example add content which violates the Swedish copyright law even if the content doesn't violate the US copyright law). Although the Wikimedia Foundation can't be fined for violating the Charter of Fundamental Rights, any European contributor providing information about violations of this policy may be sued in his own country (although this may depend on various circumstances on a case-to-case basis). The choice to design this policy to violate the Charter of Fundamental Rights means that people within the European Union can't report contributors suspected for violating the policy without risking that the police will knock on the reporting person's door. In that sense, the policy isn't preventing child abuse but endorsing child abuse as you can't prevent child abuse if it is illegal to report the child abuse in the first place. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
How the law applies to individual users is not our problem. Every user is responsible in following the local law in which they are contributing from. WMF legal team explain this time and time again and I will not indulge in it as it has been discussed to death. It is also entirely irrelevant here.
I am unable to follow your logic. Reporting crime is illegal in Europe?
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 18:00, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Would these images be allowed?

User:Jehochman, could you please tell me whether under your policy suggestion, these two images would allowed to be 1) uploaded onto English Wikipedia and/or 2) used in articles. Could you please explain your answers as well, inline with your proposal. I'm asking because it has been suggested elsewhere that mastecomy photos, and photos of a naked child on a beach in Europe, might be part of sexualisation of images, depending on who's looking at them, etc. Russavia (talk) 23:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh come on, you and I both know an image from a U.S. government agency isn't going to be deleted as child porn, and the second one would at best be a minor COM:IDENTITY issue, rather than some sort of child porn issue.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
It's a serious question. Read User:Simonxag's comments at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Rumbek Sudan cattle camp2.jpg in relation to the Rumbek photo, and by using the dost test. By applying the dost test, should we remove these photos? Or should we simply apply common sense? Russavia (talk) 00:57, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Seems obvious to me that Simon wasn't being entirely sincere in his comments and was trying to illustrate a point.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 01:07, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
I did believe that that particular image and all similar should be deleted. I think we have images which are prosecutebale but are not prosectuted because of the current poitical climate. Jimbo's talk page is about changing that political climate by manufacturing a "fact" of kiddiporn on the Wikipedia. If he gets journalistic support he may well succeed in this. If you find any conflict and irony in what I say, it is because I stress then (and now) that none of this is about protecting children from anything.
Straw man. Most of the controversial sexual images from Flickr and porn sites have dubious licensing to begin with.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:09, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
No, actually, I'm playing the role that our friend in red should be playing :) With the Rumbek photos, of course they are not child porn; they display a way of life as it is/was in Rumbek in contemporary times. Now imagine they weren't kids in Rumbek, but kids on a beach in Mozambique. This could likely be representative of contemporary life in Mozambique, couldn't it? Or how about, recalling Brigance in A Time to Kill, imagine they were white, on a beach in Europe. These are the types of questions we need to be asking ourselves as a community before we consider introducing something so wide-ranging as Jehochman's proposal. Russavia (talk) 08:22, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
At the risk of derailing whatever merit Russavia's question might have, I need to point out why that image of the girls playing is on Commons at all. On 27 November 2012, I started a discussion about concerns I had with regard to Commons:Photographs of identifiable people and its lack of any guidance on use of images of children without parental consent. The discussion was prompted by the upload of images of topless German boyscouts from Flickr by User:MaybeMaybeMaybe (who turned out to be a sockpuppet of user:RafikiSykes). One of the results of that discussion was that Russavia began uploading images of children from Flickr, including the one of Malagasy girls that he has used as an example here (uploaded a few hours after I started the discussion about parental consent). If Jehochman's proposal is included in this policy, we should expect to see users making pointy uploads here to test the boundaries and the patience of those who try to enforce this rule. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:06, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
This hasn't happened in the past, why should it now? People were worried of exhibitionists clogging the servers on commons about half a decade ago when commons became more mainstream and that didn't happen. Vast majority of commons content is not remotely sexually explicit. People were worried about mass amount of copyrighted content being uploaded to commons when some large wikis (such as Spanish Wikipedia) decided to turn off local uploads and that didn't happen either. Commons is not swarming with copyright violations either. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 14:49, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
I think you may have misunderstood me. And Commons is swarming with copyright violations. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:08, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
I've uploaded photos of Steve Evans in the past from Flickr, such as File:Bhutan smile.jpg. Being familiar with his work for a long time now, and knowing he's a cultural researcher who has done a heap of NGO work, and is published in the media, and after DC posted on Commons Admin noticeboard, I uploaded a set of photos of Steve's from Sierra Leone, to show how Flickr tagging can affect categories on Commons. Afterwards, I uploaded a complete set of photos from Madagascar. I then posted the entire upload to my Malagasy Wikipedia userpage in aid of collaboration with an editor on that project. It's nothing new, given I've done the same thing with Steve's photos from Ethiopia in July 2012 in aid of collaboration on Amharic Wikipedia. Now, the only thing you are remotely right on DC in relation to why is that I did upload the Sierra Leone and Malagasy photos after becoming aware of MaybeMaybeMaybe's uploads. As you can see from the Ethiopian uploads, up until then I was using this tool, which allowed for the uploading of one image at a time. Learning of MMM's uploads, did make me aware of this tool which allows for entire streams/sets to be uploaded, and that is how the Malagasy photos were uploaded. What we need to be careful of is editors who present issues in the vein of this, and making insinuations that editors only uploaded photos because they showed topless boys, as you did on the same Commons thread you started. It's pretty clear to anyone who looks at full background what is happening on our projects; in other words people, don't get your info from discussions on the echo chamber that is JW's talk page. Russavia (talk) 02:55, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
I stand by what I said - you uploaded that image as a direct response to the discussion on topless boys. Thanks for linking to that discussion on Jimbo's talk page, though. I stand by what I said there, too. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
The question you should be asking is, are there anything problematic with these images. Are there? It is a simple yes/no question. Discuss content not contributor. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 14:54, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
The content doesn't just appear by magic, even if that's what you like to believe. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
That wasn't a simple yes/no answer was it? Are these two images problematic? (Y/N) -- A Certain White Cat chi? 15:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
I didn't come here to play that game. I came here to shed a little light on how one of those images came to be on Commons in the first place. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
It isn't a game. It is a simple and reasonable question you should be able to answer with ease. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 15:29, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
When the question is posed in a questionably-not-good-faith When did you stop beating your wife? manner, I see nothing wrong with dismissing and ignoring both the question and the questioner. "What if?" games contribute little to legitimate discourse. Tarc (talk) 16:32, 23 May 2013‎ (UTC)
It is a question that I can answer easily, but as I said, I'm not here to play that game. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:35, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
I am just asking if you feel these two images which has nudity of children has anything wrong with them in terms of being allowed on Wikipedia or Commons. After all, the proposal covers such content and I am curious how it would apply to it. I realize this may be a game for you but it is a serious matter for the rest of us. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 16:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree. It seems unreasonably arrogant to demand that we accept a policy change while refusing to clarify what that policy change will prohibit. I should note that in the discussion on Jimbo Wales' talk page about semi-nude photos, I took on every hypothetical asked of me. There was one instance where I had to admit some imprecision in my ideas (Guantanamo Bay sexual abuse photos), and saying "you don't know" could also be a valid answer here, but the point is, we should know how much we know about where any proposed boundary is and how precise it is and whether people actually agreed where it was. Wnt (talk) 19:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Toaru, don't bother getting into discussion; it's pointless. Such people already have their minds made up, and refuse to see reason, as you can clearly see above by their comments. Instead of assuming good faith and seeing things for what they are; nope, I've uploaded dozens of photos to Commons simply for that one photo. Same thing with MMM; they uploaded those particular photos only because the boys were topless - the fact about toolserver being dodgy and the bot crashing at regular intervals is not part of anything that certain people wish to consider. Let them go on and on about things on Commons on enwp as they do, and we'll simply continue to ignore it and do what we do in the best interests of all of our projects. Russavia (talk) 17:00, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

This is slice of life and this is exploitative even though it uses images from the former. The issue isn't whether any one image is child porn (those clear cut images get deleted), but rather whether wikimedia editors should be crowd sourcing images for exploitative uses. This debate would have more substance if those that arguing for retention and cataloguing of images of nude children in developing countries were also putting up nude pictures of their own children. So when we see ACWC and Russavia posting photos of their own family rather than arguing for retention of images scraped from the web, I'll start to believe that they are being honest in their opinions. John lilburne (talk) 20:39, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
I do not see why you are interested in viewing nude photos of my family but here is a nude group photo for you (slice of life). -- A Certain White Cat chi? 21:05, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Stop appealing to emotional fallacy John. The first link is obviously someone's photo stream. The second link is someone's favourite porn stash. Unless you can provide some solid evidence that our projects are a beacon for the sharing of child pornography I think we'll continue to ignore such emotional fallacies like what you have presented above. It's great that you take such a deep interest in preventing child porn, but your efforts are best concentrated on other parts of the web (particularly the dark web, where the majority of child porn is shared these days). Also, now that you are here, you have stated on numerous occasions that Flickr takes pride in deleting child porn some 12 hours after being alerted to it; on Commons it is deleted within a matter of minutes; ask User:Odder -- he's deleted most of the < 100 images in the last 12 months that have appeared on Commons (including so called innocent images). And I will continue to state that Steve Evans' photos are all ok for us on Commons; because they do capture real life in many parts around the world; anyone who would dare link such photos to child porn has one fucked up mind indeed. Russavia (talk) 21:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
The point is that images which may be slice of life in their original context can and do end up being stripped from their original context and placed in an entirely different one. In the second case the images of the nude kids were indeed part of someone's porn stash. If those images were of kids on a beach in Florida or South Australia peoples attitude towards them would be very different, but they are acceptable because they are a) 'ethnic' and b) there is little chance of the kids or their families becoming aware of the exploitation. Additionally the context of an image determines how that image is perceived. I think that wikimedia curators are well aware of the potential misuse of such images, otherwise we would see them uploading images of the kids belonging to their friends and family. John lilburne (talk) 22:54, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
But again, that Flickr collection is not an issue for us, it's an issue for Flickr; you really need to take it up with them. Commons:Category:Human urination is much more relevant for us (I don't know about enwp given images aren't categorised here), and there may or may not be some ident images in amongst that lot, which if there is Commons:COM:DR is the way to go for them. Russavia (talk) 00:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
But it is very relevant to here. If all of those kids urinating images had a free license $ to a p they'd be on Commons and lovingly curated just like that favourite page is. The visual effect would be the same, and due to some weird search bug, they'd be turning up in amongst images of watersports (sexual), adult male penis, and masturbation images. The same is true of the Dietmar Temps images, if they were under free license you'd have page after page of nude Ethiopian boy photos. Commons would be unable to stop itself, and in a few years time would be open to the charge of collecting nude photos of 3rd world children. The commons child nudity pages are already open to a charge of exploitation being as the only modern imagery are of African and Asian kids. The more that get added there worse it will become. John lilburne (talk) 08:45, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
And what exactly have vague allegations of improper conduct (or something) by Commons curators got to do with a proposed addition to the child protection policy on en.wp? I also completely fail to understand why you feel active curation is a bad thing? Surely that is exactly what is needed to make the images accessible, the quality high and enable the speedy removal of illegal images? Thryduulf (talk) 09:56, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
*sigh* - If you haven't realized by now from looking at the links I've supplied, this is not about legality. An innocent slice of life image of a nude child, no longer become innocent when stripped of its original context. In the UK at the momemnt there is a child murder trial under way and the prosecution are asking the defendent "Why were you putting images of little girls in amongst your porn stash?" Context is everything, and when an image is stripped from its original context and placed in another ones reaction to it changes. A family photo of a 6 yo urinating is one thing in the context of a family photo album. 100 images of children urinating collated together is damn weird when an individual does it, and also when educational organisation does it without parental permission too. The weirdness has nothing to do with the legality or otherwise of the individual images.
Another example some years ago there was a bug on flickr where instead of displaying image abcd1234efg it displayed image 6786dshgf, so people were looking at their photostreams and seeing images from other people there. Flickr started to find out what the problem was and fix it. Meanwhile people were starting to complain that some of the wrong images were pornographic, then "photos of my child surrounded by porn" the results were so distressing to people that 10 minutes later Yahoo shut down flickr until the issues were resolved.
we saw something similar the other week when people wrongly thought their child photos from facebook were being used on wikipedia. There is no leeway here, no AGF, they will lawyer up pretty damn quick, and the internet flash mob will descend. You need to be extremely careful that whenever you use a photo of someone's child the context is not in any way creepy. John lilburne (talk) 11:09, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
And again, that is Flickr, not WMF projects. But in regards to what is currently on Commons, it is a certain group who are stripping images of their context and giving them creepy connotations by way of emotional fallacies and linking them to what people do offsite. We prefer Common sense on Commons. If en.wp wishes to go down your path, then so be it; it will be to this community's detriment. That is my final comment. Russavia (talk)
Actually, Russavia, you are the one who seems intent on stripping images of their context. To use Flickr as an example, if someone has an image of their own child in a swimsuit, there's nothing wrong with that, but if someone has an account that is full of images of other people's children in swimsuits, Flickr will delete it if someone reports it to them. Flickr uses the context to make a decision. On WP, there are many images that are fine in the context of certain articles, but would be completely unacceptable in other articles. Here's an example I came across yesterday - User:Ultimate Destiny tried to use one of their vast Commons collection of old posed "ethnographic" nudes to illustrate Women in Libya. A portrait of a topless girl created around 1900 as a titillating image for contemporary European men used in the infobox of what is intended to be a serious encyclopedia article on the role of women in Libya? I know that you would rather talk about images without also considering the users involved (or pretending that only what they do on WP is relevant), but I will continue to look at the context. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:22, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Courtesy of indiscriminate uploading of Flickr materials to Commons, Women in Libya now has a suitable image in the article. She's notable too. No need to say thanks. Russavia (talk) 17:36, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
I am kind of lost. What is the goal here. Do you wish to
  • a) Impose a sense of morals based on your values
  • b) Pedophiles from the site
  • c) Delete nudity in articles and commons
  • d) Delete images which have pictures of children in articles and commons
  • e) All of the above!?
  • f) None of the above
Your end goal is too incoherent for me to respond in a meaningful way anymore.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 17:00, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
That presumes that you ever responded coherently in the first place. All you have done is obfuscate and obstruct the attempt to get meaningful verbiage into the Child Protection article here, by crying about morals and censorship. Tarc (talk) 18:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
I have asked a simple question. Just pick one of the options listed. I have even added lettering to the options for your convenience. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 06:02, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Regardless of strict legal liability, one should have parental permission before using images of children. John lilburne (talk) 11:01, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Regardless of strict legal liability, one should have subject consent before using their image when nudity or sexual activity is concerned. John lilburne (talk) 11:01, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
There are exceptional and rare occasions where there public interest overrides the above two principals. Becuase we want a picture is never of itself sufficient. John lilburne (talk) 11:01, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
It entirely depends on local laws wherever the photos/videos are taken and if the photographer lacks the needed permissions he or she may be liable legally. The issue you suggested applies to adults and children alike. This is personality rights territory and WMF legal has determined it is the uploaders responsibility. As long as the images do not violate the relevant US/international laws we do not have any kind of legal obligation. If we recieve an actual complaint the matter can be handled on a case by case basis.
To illustrate consider the images and screen captures on Phan Thi Kim Phuc, which are fully copyrighted and exists not on commons but on en.wikipedia. We do not have the consent of all those children and/or their adults. Mind that none of them are children anymore and some may not necessarily be still alive. What is the public interest here? Showing the effects of the use of napalm indiscriminately killing (burning alive) civilians including children OR personality rights of the individuals on those photos? That photo put pressure on politicians to remove use of napalm from many militaries.
The matter isn't as easy as you think and this policy does not address such issues. There can be modern equivalents of this photo say out of current conflict zones.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 16:49, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
From the above I'm guessing that when the cluestick went around you were hiding under the table. John lilburne (talk) 17:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
To me, it would appear the proposed policy as written should not affect this picture, because it (a) is a single child (b) not engaged in sexual activity (c) about as far away from lascivious, lewd, or sexual as it is possible to get in the cosmos. It would have been nice to hear the proponents of the policy say this, however. Wnt (talk) 17:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Not sure why it would have been nice, since no one actually suggested it would be covered, as its obviously not its intent to do so. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:47, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
It isn't that obvious. In the entire text up to this point since the two images above were posted, you are the first person to mention this. Nobody was interested in establishing a scope when inquired. The original proposal is trying to introduce "age verification" and the photos clearly depict underage children. The starting point of the proposal is moral obligations. Later discussion is talking about consent from parents and what not. What is the scope of the proposed change if those images aren't within its scope? How would we enforce age verification? Who would be in charge of such personal information? OTRS? Oversight? Arbitrators? What about the underlying privacy issues for adults whom do not want their names posted? Would that be legal to begin with? I can list scores of questions. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 19:40, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Of course, it's obvious to most people, which is what makes it obvious. As to your questions, there are many ways for uploaders to provide the information sought, which is model age of consent for sexually explicit images of people, and for them or us to attach it to the image (or for it to be apparent in the photo). For images where that is impossible but there is still encyclopedic reason for the photo (as with historical images) then the representation requirement is waived by reasoned consensus. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:07, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Claiming something is obvious doesn't make it obvious, obviously. What would be the point of this red tape? Who would enforce it? The uploader could just as easily lie. Likewise, the model might have provided the photo on the condition of anonymity (which could just as be the uploader). Such a verification system is hardly trivial. Older uploads on the other hand would suffer from a potential mass deletion. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 21:51, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
People can lie about many things but we still ask them to describe the images they upload, their relationship to the images, their sources, and its licenses. We ask for information, and they provide it. It is all information that helps us determine if we want to use the image and where. Liars are sometimes caught in their lies. Asking the pictorial model's age range is no further infringement on their identity. Who enforces it is the same people that enforce everything around here, the users. Uploads will either need to provide the information, or not be used on articles, here. Whether they are deleted from other projects is up to other projects. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:17, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
In that sense, sure we can add an optional field to the upload template. It would be optional perhaps. However this wouldn't address the concerns mentioned on this thread. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 07:38, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
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