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.
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Wikimedia Commons exists to serve the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation, 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 of high quality and respected around the world.
Commons is used by people of all ages, and across many different cultures around the world. As such, 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 people will be included in our projects, when it is necessary for educational value. At Commons, we are sensitive to our humanitarian and educational mission, sensitive to the needs of our readers, and try to make those judgments in a serious way. As a result, explicit sexual content and other imagery without serious merit is deleted.
The following categories of sexual content are not allowed on commons:
- Content which would trigger for the uploader or anyone else the reporting requirements of USC 2257 can be speedy deleted.
- Content which is of low quality and repetitive of other content accepted for educational value can be deleted.
- Content which is 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.
The following categories of sexual content are allowed on commons:
- Illustrations seriously done and in the serious educational style of a medical textbook
- Images of high quality of body parts, particularly if labeled for educational value
Categories
In the past 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. (Editing note from Jimbo so you have an idea what I'm driving at here... this is an example - this image used to be in Category:People eating)
