Commons:Sexual content

Note from Jimbo: since the particular page that was here before was just a mishmash discussion of previous efforts to clarify policy in this area, I'm just getting rid of it and starting again. I expect the Wikimedia Foundation board to issue a statement within the next few days (it takes time to get a consensus and a vote) and this policy should be updated at that time to reflect the board's statement. The details here are not the point - others can flesh this out.

Wikimedia Commons exists to further the mission of all Wikimedia Foundation projects, which is educational, charitable, and humanitarian in nature. As such, Commons adheres to guidelines of quality and scope through which the community can exercise editorial judgment to ensure that our projects are valued and supported around the world.

Commons is used by people of all ages, and across many different cultures around the world. As a result, there can arise difficult editorial judgments about appropriateness. Although there is a common saying that "Wikimedia Commons is not censored," this statement should not be interpreted to imply that we do not make editorial judgments about the appropriateness of content. We do, all the time, and we must.

Some content which may be offensive or difficult for some readers will be included in our projects, where it is necessary for educational value. However, images that are low-quality, redundant, or without educational merit may be deleted.

Content which is not permitted

The following categories of sexual content are not permitted on commons, except in cases where the specific content or creator is notable, or the images are widely agreed to either be of high artistic, literary, or historical merit, or to be a part of a larger work that fits those requirements:

• Photographs and film matching the definition of pornography in USC 2257 should be quickly deleted. All other artistic media is excluded from this requirement, unless derivative of one of those.
  • This may include actual or simulated acts of:

  1. Sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
  2. Bestiality;
  3. Masturbation;

The following two additional points likely need some clarification and/or expansion to be a useful part of policy.

Sadistic or masochistic abuse[clarification needed] - or Lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person.[clarification needed]"

• • This portion of policy against sexually explicit images applies to both actual photographs as well as drawings.

• As with any attempt to abuse Commons as a personal webhost, photographs, films, and collections of user-created artwork which are uploaded by an uploader who appears to be primarily using Commons as a personal publishing service for pornography can be deleted - and the uploader potentially blocked after warning.

• However, note that if an image is currently in use on one of the wikipedias, it might -in fact- not be a clear cut case. (Think of the Virgin Killer situation, for instance). Proceed with caution, and ask the community for help (for instance via a regular deletion nomination).

Explicitly allowed

The following categories of sexual content are explicitly allowed on commons:

• Illustrations and photographs in the educational style of a medical textbook
  • For instance, medical illustrations of diseases, with appropriate permissions, or high quality images of body parts, particularly if labelled
• Most artistic depictions of sexual content; that is, paintings, woodcuts, cartoons, and so on, if they pass reasonable notability standards, or serve to illustrate a type of artwork.
• (Images that are actually in use to illustrate an article on one of the wikipedias)

Special cases and exceptions

As with all content policies, there is a need to recognize the value of serious editorial judgment. It is possible that for particularly noteworthy historical works, an exception will be made. Such exceptions should be made very rarely and only upon a serious discussion as to what the educational purpose may be.

Categories

We have had a problem with images being placed into inappropriate categories, so that viewers were exposed in unexpected ways to sexual content. Image categorization should be done in such a way that readers are not exposed unexpectedly to content that may be offensive. To illustrate, this image was found in Category:People eating - there may be further clean up required.

Descriptions

Descriptions of images related to sexuality should always be written in an style oriented toward encyclopedic and educational intent. Image names and descriptions on Commons should be as neutral as possible, salacious and pornographic image names and descriptions should be avoided.

Other Proposals / See also

Categorization and content rating

There are some 'flagging' systems for categorizing content with a fixed vocabulary that describes sexual and violent content.

Some previous proposals have addressed supporting editors in adding such flags to allow a further layer of technology to enable downstream users, such as schools, to easily set their own policies regarding access.

The ICRA Content Rating system may be a useful starting point as a system in wide adoption around the world. In terms of MediaWiki integration, there is an open bugzilla request from 2004 describing what remains to be done.

Previous proposals

These generally did not garner approval from the community

1. A sandbox / demonstration of media filtering (April 2010)
2. April 2010 (being an evolution of the below)
3. Proposals from 2008, final revision January 2009
4. /Deletion log a list of deletions made under the new 'jimbo' instructions
5. feel free to create a subpage for discussion / development of your ideas :-)